[Bf-education] Sans shortcut keys

[Edwin Pilobello]

I just started a class for under-priveledged kids.  Their school does not have 
the latest computers.  So I brought a mobile lab of 6 Dell XPS laptops.  Wide 
and heavy models, which I thought came with full keyboards...but not.  So I 
changed my approach.

I decided to leave the shortcuts out and just use the menus.  Our first use of 
the menus was in changing views: top, front, right, etc.  The kids were to 
duplicate the block 5 times and build a pyramid by grabbing the widgets and 
positioning the blocks.  They were to make sure that the blocks aligned by 
switching between the views and use MMB for spinning/zooming.  The objective 
being to recognize how 3D space is organized.

It worked!  This early in the game, eliminating the tactile numpad shortcut 
procedures removed that much of a cognitive load. 

I'm sure we'll be using S, R and G next week.  So we'll see how they tap with 
the left hand and mouse with the right hand.