Fortunately, this kind of information management is exactly what computers are good at. So the next step in the refinement of the software was to devise a hierarchy or web of concepts—the “knowledge map” we’ve already seen—so that the system itself could advise students what to work on next. Once they’d mastered the addition and subtraction of fractions, for example, they could move on to simple linear equations. Having the software hand out the “assignments” left me free to do the essentially human parts of the job—the actual mentoring and tutoring.
