[Basic learning strategies and programming languages]

The article is based on three facts. One is that at the present day the computer is tending to be used in all fields, including that of education. The second is that, when a new teaching device appears, the first tendency is to add it to the stock of existing devices, which fails to extract the full benefit from the new device. The third is that for the educator, the computer is an alien and in many cases an unintelligible instrument, the mastery of which requires time which he does not have at his disposal. The author proposes a number of teaching strategies for initiation of the educator who wishes to use the computer in support of some teaching-learning process, and as a bridge between the educator and the computer programmer. To this end he proposes routine, formative evaluation, simulation and game strategies. The routine strategies, as their name indicates, use the repetition of a central learning practice. The formative evaluation is based on the principle of providing the subject with immediate information on his performance of a task in order to improve his efficiency. Simulation promotes learning by changing the values of one or more variables in a situation and verifying the effects. The game, apart from its intrinsic purpose, results in learning through the immediate manipulation of objects and the immediate circumstances in which it takes place.