【Creativity Zen Espresso | 創意心法】

Monday, October 16, 2006

Sequential vs Random

I was reading the Filemaker Pro 8.5 software manual PDF file. While browsing this document, I found the inconvenience of navigating the document from a human-friendly perspective. This reminds me to think on the differences between "random" and "sequential," and their subtle effect when speaking of learning processes.

The advantage of sequential learning is to follow a liner structurer from basic to advanced levels, while its disadvantage is that it takes a longer time to complete the learning of a specific advanced topic.

In comparison, random learning is usually happens to the self-taught people who need to access the specific advanced topic immediately although they might not have enough basic knowledge relating to the advanced topic.

Every book has a content list, but most of them do not reveal the information to address the relationships between sections to sections, or chapters to chapters.

To join both advantages of sequential and random, a new way of designing tutorial materials can found . The solution is to provide a prerequisite guide line for the advanced topics; thus, readers can follow this guide line to build up the whole picture right away. Afterwards, no matter readers follow a sequential structurer or choose to read in a random order, they will not lost in the whole forest.

Living in the new digital era, interactivities have played a very important role in many aspects. As digital dictionaries has really made a difference than the traditional printed ones, the instant access power turbocharged the speed of searching.

Now, back to the very beginning, regarding the Filemaker 8.5 manual, even though the document is capable for a keyword search, the feedback results have flood me already. I am so hunger for a multi-route structure which will take me from everywhere I am to everywhere I want.¶

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