How to teach technical concepts with cartoons

#1

Post by Tomte » Sat, Oct 28, 2017, 12:12 PM UTC

How to teach technical concepts with cartoons
jvns.ca

Re: How to teach technical concepts with cartoons

#2

Post by thomk » Sat, Oct 28, 2017, 1:35 PM UTC

It is a nice idea but some of those cartoons look very confusing and would be confusing to a novice. I think asking the user about themselves then finding a simile to explain the new thing is better.

It puts the effort on the teacher which is where it should be. Making things easy to draw doesn't bridge the gap of complexity.

Re: How to teach technical concepts with cartoons

#3

Post by afarrell » Sat, Oct 28, 2017, 2:13 PM UTC

thomk wrote: post #2

It is a nice idea but some of those cartoons look very confusing and would be confusing to a novice. I think asking the user about themselves then finding a simile to explain the new thing is better. It puts the effort on the teacher which is where it should be. Making things easy to draw doesn't bridge the gap of complexity.

> asking the user about themselves then finding a simile

I do this when in conversation, but how do you do this in broadcast?

Re: How to teach technical concepts with cartoons

#4

Post by raoulr » Sat, Oct 28, 2017, 2:13 PM UTC

In a previous century I learned to program using Roger Kaufman's "A FORTRAN Coloring Book". It uses a very similar technique (and style!). Here is a link to the internet archive: https://archive.org/stream/9780262610261

Re: How to teach technical concepts with cartoons

#5

Post by ghaff » Sat, Oct 28, 2017, 2:33 PM UTC

raoulr wrote: post #4

In a previous century I learned to program using Roger Kaufman's "A FORTRAN Coloring Book". It uses a very similar technique (and style!). Here is a link to the internet archive: https://archive.org/stream/9780262610261

Blast from the past. I took his course. As I recall we actually had a mimeographed copy of the book although, now, I think I have the real book around somewhere. At the time, the joint computer facility still had an IBM 360 so you had to submit jobs via punch cards with very little CPU time leeway for coding errors or typos.

Re: How to teach technical concepts with cartoons

#6

Post by davidzweig » Sat, Oct 28, 2017, 2:41 PM UTC

Nice blog.

Re: How to teach technical concepts with cartoons

#7

Post by louprado » Sat, Oct 28, 2017, 3:02 PM UTC

Forest M. Mims III was a master at using cartoons in his electrical engineering books. Just look at the happy and sad lightbulbs on page 1 of Getting Started in Electronics[1].

Using cartoons a great way to disarm the reader, especially children, into believing the subject matter will be understandable. I don't know if Mims used cartoons to make engineering appeal to children, but it certainly had that affect on me.

[1]http://www.flickriver.com/photos/mightyohm/tags/forrestmmims...

Re: How to teach technical concepts with cartoons

#8

Post by abledon » Sat, Oct 28, 2017, 3:04 PM UTC

afarrell wrote: post #3

thomk wrote: post #2

It is a nice idea but some of those cartoons look very confusing and would be confusing to a novice. I think asking the user about themselves then finding a simile to explain the new thing is better. It puts the effort on the teacher which is where it should be. Making things easy to draw doesn't bridge the gap of complexity.

> asking the user about themselves then finding a simile I do this when in conversation, but how do you do this in broadcast?

One solution: Start off the sentence with describing the persona the reader can take on to ‘live’ through the example. “say your a stay at home dad with 4 kids running around but they all want to share the same toy, you enforce a round robin scheduling rule for the kids , they pass the toy around one after the other”... similarly when using technology foobaroo , apps sharing a resource etc...

Re: How to teach technical concepts with cartoons

#9

Post by westurner » Sat, Oct 28, 2017, 3:23 PM UTC

There's not a Wikipedia page for "visual metaphor", but there are pages for "visual rhetoric" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_rhetoric and "visual thinking" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_thinking

Negative space can be both meaningful and useful later on.

I learned about visual thinking and visual metaphor in application to business communications from "The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures" http://www.danroam.com/the-back-of-the-napkin/