Comments on: Teaching With Databases http://www.thechessmill.com/2007/12/04/teaching-with-databases/ Ramblings and ruminations on chess in Milwaukee and SE Wisconsin, the USA and the World Thu, 25 Feb 2010 15:15:25 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: Arlen Walker http://www.thechessmill.com/2007/12/04/teaching-with-databases/comment-page-1/#comment-26662 Arlen Walker Sun, 05 Apr 2009 23:57:51 +0000 http://www.thechessmill.com/2007/12/04/teaching-with-databases/#comment-26662 The latest version of CA lets you print out positions without moves. You can set up the position and then specify zero moves in the moves to be printed portion of the printer setup. You could do this in versions prior to CA10, but they would still insist on printing out 1 ply. CA10 now prints just the diagram. Since CA's classifiers beat anything CB has all hollow, I'm setting up my teaching positions there, these days. The one issue I have is CA doesn't seem to have mastered the art of rows and columns; when I print in two columns, the diagrams don't line up. But that may just be some tweaking. It's early days for me in setting these up, so if/when I solve that issue I'll post on it. CA's school training programs are excellent, but they won't let you print lessons from them, so they're useless for that purpose. The best solution I've come up with for those simple "fragmentary" positions so far is a template I've built in Pages, my word processor. I'm using one of the Alpine chess fonts (cheap as they are, they're a great deal for quality chess publication) and just creating the positions by hand in it. Tedious, but luckily there aren't many of those diagrams I use. The latest version of CA lets you print out positions without moves. You can set up the position and then specify zero moves in the moves to be printed portion of the printer setup. You could do this in versions prior to CA10, but they would still insist on printing out 1 ply. CA10 now prints just the diagram. Since CA’s classifiers beat anything CB has all hollow, I’m setting up my teaching positions there, these days.

The one issue I have is CA doesn’t seem to have mastered the art of rows and columns; when I print in two columns, the diagrams don’t line up. But that may just be some tweaking. It’s early days for me in setting these up, so if/when I solve that issue I’ll post on it.

CA’s school training programs are excellent, but they won’t let you print lessons from them, so they’re useless for that purpose.

The best solution I’ve come up with for those simple “fragmentary” positions so far is a template I’ve built in Pages, my word processor. I’m using one of the Alpine chess fonts (cheap as they are, they’re a great deal for quality chess publication) and just creating the positions by hand in it. Tedious, but luckily there aren’t many of those diagrams I use.

]]> By: LYdia Rennicke http://www.thechessmill.com/2007/12/04/teaching-with-databases/comment-page-1/#comment-17596 LYdia Rennicke Tue, 25 Mar 2008 16:09:17 +0000 http://www.thechessmill.com/2007/12/04/teaching-with-databases/#comment-17596 Boy, is this the truth. I teach around 15-20 kids, none of whom have computers, noe of whom can read chess scores, and I have to make up my own curriculmn, with little help from databases. HOw nice it would be to be able to print and handout chess problems of varying degrees of difficulty. And the illegal postitions, insisting on two kings, means you can't have simple checkmate with queen and a rook just to demonstrate principle. Chess is confusing enough without having an extra piece in the puzzle to confuse beginners. Fritz does allow you to establish, and save, then print from Microsoft word, but it is a tedious process, expecially if you want several problems on one page. Glad I am not the only one struggling with this. Boy, is this the truth. I teach around 15-20 kids, none of whom have computers, noe of whom can read chess scores, and I have to make up my own curriculmn, with little help from databases. HOw nice it would be to be able to print and handout chess problems of varying degrees of difficulty. And the illegal postitions, insisting on two kings, means you can’t have simple checkmate with queen and a rook just to demonstrate principle. Chess is confusing enough without having an extra piece in the puzzle to confuse beginners. Fritz does allow you to establish, and save, then print from Microsoft word, but it is a tedious process, expecially if you want several problems on one page. Glad I am not the only one struggling with this.

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