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How to teach technical concepts with cartoons

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Re: How to teach technical concepts with cartoons

#21

Post by CapTVK »

For some good examples how to teach technical and mechanic concepts concerning maintenance check Out PS, The Preventive Maintenance Monthly. It's a series of US Army technical bulletins published since June 1951 as a monthly magazine with comic book-style art to illustrate proper preventive maintenance methods.

Comic Legend Will Eisner’s Work Influences Military Training http://www.military.com/video/off-duty/humor/comic-legend-wi...

Also check out the PS archives. It's one of Will Eisner's hidden gems.

http://dig.library.vcu.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/psm

Re: How to teach technical concepts with cartoons

#22

Post by zaptheimpaler »

klenwell wrote: post #16

I worked with an analyst a few years ago. I'll call her Alice. Alice wasn't very good at her job. She was ok and could get stuff done with sufficient hand-holding. The problem was she was really insecure. Alice worried that she wasn't smart enough or experienced enough in this particular industry to do her job. She was. But she had the air of someone who was always worried about being found out. So instead of talking…

A+ troll would rage again.

Re: How to teach technical concepts with cartoons

#23

Post by ghaff »

newbear wrote: post #11
teddyh wrote: post #10

Some of my favorite comics about technical topics: http://dilbert.com/strip/2000-03-19 http://www.kevinandkell.com/2000/kk1029.html http://www.kevinandkell.com/2001/kk1230.html http://www.kevinandkell.com/archive/boardwatch/kkbw200002.gi... http://www.kevinandkell.com/2000/kk0730.html http://www.kevinandkell.com/2003/kk1005.html http://www.kevinandkell.com/2005/kk0515.html http://onthefastrack.com/comics/december-9-2…

Curious. How do you stay organized? Do you just happen also be interested in this topic and have a file with these links? Or do you have a good memory and googled away for the ones you found relevant?

It's less necessary now that you have browser sync but I still use pinboard.in (basically a delicious-type site) to save bookmarks along with some comments.

Re: How to teach technical concepts with cartoons

#24

Post by justinpombrio »

forkerenok wrote: post #19
klenwell wrote: post #16

I worked with an analyst a few years ago. I'll call her Alice. Alice wasn't very good at her job. She was ok and could get stuff done with sufficient hand-holding. The problem was she was really insecure. Alice worried that she wasn't smart enough or experienced enough in this particular industry to do her job. She was. But she had the air of someone who was always worried about being found out. So instead of talking…

What's the moral of the story?

I see you aren't familiar with the works of Franz Kafka.

Re: How to teach technical concepts with cartoons

#25

Post by Too »

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.

Agree, I like the style but i don't really see these as very educational. The floating point comic which is being brought up as a good example does no explaining at all, it's just a bunch of random numbers and equations, why 2^52? where does that 52 enter the picture and how does it relate to the 64 bits from the first box? Why is +0.2 being rounded? Just showing the exponent/fraction division would have made it so much clearer.

Many of the comics have the same traits, they are cute or might be useful as cheat sheets if you already know the topic but can't really be used to teach someone about it.

Re: How to teach technical concepts with cartoons

#26

Post by slimbods »

teddyh wrote: post #10

Some of my favorite comics about technical topics: http://dilbert.com/strip/2000-03-19 http://www.kevinandkell.com/2000/kk1029.html http://www.kevinandkell.com/2001/kk1230.html http://www.kevinandkell.com/archive/boardwatch/kkbw200002.gi... http://www.kevinandkell.com/2000/kk0730.html http://www.kevinandkell.com/2003/kk1005.html http://www.kevinandkell.com/2005/kk0515.html http://onthefastrack.com/comics/december-9-2…

xkcd deserves a mention, I'll pick this as my favourite:

https://xkcd.com/149/

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