Educational Software

"Good educational software and teacher-support tools, developed with full understanding of principles of learning, have not yet become the norm."

from the Committee on Developments in the Science of Learning:
How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience and School
National Academy Press, 1999.

Problems with current educational software:

Emphasis on algorithms and coding.
Hardware and operating system developments make software obsolete.
The half-life of the textbook publication cycle is longer than the half life of most computer technology.
Software interfaces have idiosyncratic behavior.
Day-to-day software tools, i.e., word processors, interoperate poorly with educational software.
The creation and distribution of media-rich documents all to often required specialists.
It is expensive.

Educational software must be based on research into the effectiveness of computer-based instruction.
Educational software should be based on virtual machines, meta-languages, and open Internet standards.
Software should be scriptable so as to allow the teacher to control the pedagogy.
Software needs to be free for non-commercial use at educational institutions.
Collaboration.