Mária Csernoch

Teaching word processing - the theory behind

It is widely thought and believed that word processors – especially MS Word – are software, which everyone can use. However, if we take a closer look at the documents we find that the picture is not at all that clear. In most of these documents even the basic rules of word processing are broken. The question is how it is possible that most of the users are satisfied with their performance, and do not realize that they only use a less noisy typewriter, and not able to take advantage of the opportunities offered by these software. In the search of clearing this misunderstanding I found that there are no publicly available sources, which would clearly set the rules to determine when the documents are properly formatted. Here I set three maxims which, together, are able to control the tools applied in word processing in order to create properly formatted texts. In summary, they state that the layout of a properly formatted text should be invariant to modification, that is, any modification of the body of text should not initiate its re-formatting. To prove that these maxims work and to show that we desperately need them I give examples of works of professionals from the administration, of those who passed ecdl exams, of teachers of various subjects, and finally of teachers of Informatics.

Teaching word processing – the practice

I compared two surveys, which were aimed to check the word processing ability of students in high schools and universities. The surveys were carried out ten years apart from one another, in 1997 and 2006. The results clearly show that most of the students are not able to use word processors properly. In the survey of 1997 I found explanation for this underperformance in the lack of computers and teachers. However, the results of the second survey did not prove any better than the results of the first, and in 2006 neither the number of computers nor the number of teachers can be blamed. What else then? I suggest that the reason for this general ignorance, for this ‘modern illiteracy’ is the ignorance of the teachers. Until the teachers are not prepared and the senior students of the universities leave the education system without a proper knowledge of the required subjects, there is little chance that they would be able to teach word processing at a satisfactory level.

Utilizing Sprego and Sprego contents

In this paper we detail how Sprego can be adapted both in mathematics and other school subjects. Sprego is a programming approach in spreadsheet environments, which utilizes the concept of function developed in mathematics classes. Sprego also offers an opportunity to practice and develop knowledge in the subjects of n-ary and composite functions, which are currently considered high level mathematics. Beyond the obvious connection between Sprego and mathematics, the authentic-table-concept of Sprego provides other subjects with a simple programming environment for data retrieval.

Frequency-based dynamic models for the analysis of English and Hungarian literary works and coursebooks for English as a second language

We examined the characteristics of how word types are introduced in English and Hungarian literary works as well as in English coursebooks written for second language learners. By subdividing the texts into small segments of equal length, we were able to pinpoint subtle changes in the narrative. Based on the frequency of the word types in the original text a model was generated, and applying the model artificial texts were created. By comparing the original and the artificial texts, the places where these changes within the narrative occurred, could be located. Studying coursebooks we found that their vocabulary and how they introduce word types resembled those of randomly collected and concatenated short stories. According to our observations writers of the coursebooks forget that not only should the number of word types be carefully planned, but their repetition, in sufficient number, should also be cared for.

The role of the newly introduced word types in the translations of novels

The project detailed in the article is able to find the vocabulary rich segments of novels in different languages. The method used here takes into account the frequency of the words of the text, and based on this information we are able to create artificial texts with the same parameters. Since the original and the artificial texts share parameters they are comparable and we can find those segments of the original text which are richer in vocabulary then it is expected as compared to a random selection of the words. The advantages of finding these vocabulary rich segments of the text, beyond that they give an insight of the development of the vocabulary of a novel, is that in any translation, adaptation process it is a great advantage being familiar with these sections of the text.