Imitation counterpoint

"Considering children as the users radiates a compelling excitement...children really can write programs that do serious things...the kids love it!  The interactive nature of the dialogue, the fact that they are in control, the feeling that they are doing real things rather than playing with toys or working out "assigned" problems, the pictorial and auditory nature of their results, all contribute to a tremendous sense of accomplishment to their experience." (394)

When do we do our best work?  Maybe when we are "in control" and "doing real things"?  Obviously.  For me this returns us to Nelson problem with what is missing from education (and our CAI motivation).  Standardized testing is the epitome of not being in control and doing unreal (even surreal) things, so--no sense of accomplishment--and this goes beyond the student to the teacher and the principal and the district too. For a teacher's personal lament, a blog post I read called I don't want to be a teacher anymore but I digress.

Back to Dynamic Media the filing system reminds me of Zotero which Ellen Filgo introduced to me and my students yesterday, choosing the format and personal ways to crossfile everything from the obvious article or book to youtube videos, webpages, and anything (I gather) that can be indicated by your computer pointer.   But for me the really interesting part of this article was the music aspect which seems so much more intuitive than when I was learning to write counterpoint (poorly) in my music theory and composing classes.  That was back in the 90s, so I am guessing that there are programs that are like the one described here although I can't point to them. My favorite aspect is that "capturing" of the score which is surely magical to behold, and the idea that you can stretch, shift, repeat, and alter it without a "do-over".