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The second first: I'm definitely there through 31 August (barring something very unlikely happening); Catherine thinks she can get the okay to keep me on through 9/9. We still need to figure out who to talk to about possible other positions at the company after 9/9 (that's when all files have to be at the printer for this project).
One of the things I did today was a chunk of proofreading, this time for some "learning through games" pages. The general idea is reasonable: use relatively simple games to teach/reinforce things like spelling, phonics, vocabulary, opposites, and the difference between fact and opinion. And some of the proofreading was of the "italicize this, there's an omitted word here" sort: the typesetters are entirely capable of following the copy out a window, though they generally point out when it doesn't fit on a page.
I also made several comments that were basically about game design: for example, there's one game that's supposed to help teach homonyms by using a variety of "Go Fish". As described in the workbook, the game results are dependent entirely on the random initial deal of the cards; I suggested a way to give the players some influence over the outcome. There's another I couldn't think of a quick fix to, which as written depends only on whether a tossed coin comes up heads or tails. (Depending on which, the players are supposed to state either a fact or an opinion--but their doing so has no effect on the game outcome, which is purely a matter of which player is first to get "heads" three times.) Easier to fix will be the one where the spinner really needs to say "0/1/2" or "1/2/3" as well as "definition, word origin, pronunciation" since the instructions say to spin and then move that number of spaces.
I pointed out, as gently as possible, that while the people who wrote these pages might well be teachers, game design is a somewhat specialized field, and I happen to hang out with several game designers.
One of the things I did today was a chunk of proofreading, this time for some "learning through games" pages. The general idea is reasonable: use relatively simple games to teach/reinforce things like spelling, phonics, vocabulary, opposites, and the difference between fact and opinion. And some of the proofreading was of the "italicize this, there's an omitted word here" sort: the typesetters are entirely capable of following the copy out a window, though they generally point out when it doesn't fit on a page.
I also made several comments that were basically about game design: for example, there's one game that's supposed to help teach homonyms by using a variety of "Go Fish". As described in the workbook, the game results are dependent entirely on the random initial deal of the cards; I suggested a way to give the players some influence over the outcome. There's another I couldn't think of a quick fix to, which as written depends only on whether a tossed coin comes up heads or tails. (Depending on which, the players are supposed to state either a fact or an opinion--but their doing so has no effect on the game outcome, which is purely a matter of which player is first to get "heads" three times.) Easier to fix will be the one where the spinner really needs to say "0/1/2" or "1/2/3" as well as "definition, word origin, pronunciation" since the instructions say to spin and then move that number of spaces.
I pointed out, as gently as possible, that while the people who wrote these pages might well be teachers, game design is a somewhat specialized field, and I happen to hang out with several game designers.
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