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Looking Back From the 1980s At Computers In Education
xzvf writes "As someone who went to high school in the '80s, this newsletter from 1980 (PDF) is a blast from the past. An interview with Microsoft talks up its BASIC language product and predicts voice control of computers in five years. Advertisements for Compute magazine, which was about to go monthly, and an article about a computer 'network' in Minnesota that connects some fax machine-looking terminal to a central computer over telephone lines. Lots of Atari, TI and RadioShack news too. It's a reminder from 30 years ago that we are still not using technology effectively in education."
to spy on kids and their families, anyway.
Does anybody actually believe that we have progressed significantly in our use of tech to educate? I sure don't.
When I was in High School, back in the 80's, students were not allowed to use a computer unless they had completed Algebra 2 and were enrolled in Trig or calculus. Th reasoning was that computers were super calculators and, as such, the only students that needed them were advanced math students.
I was allowed in the computer lab, all Apple IIs', as long as I was there with an authorized student; however, I was not allowed to actually touch a computer. This created a procedure where I, and other interested students, would write out our programs on paper and then hand them to another, authorized, student, to type in to the computer.
Fortunately, an accountant I knew got an Apple II to run Visacalc on. I was then able to us a computer all I wanted so long as I was able to use the spreadsheet when he needed something set up on it.
...but my oxen died.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Back in the 1980s, we had such a bright outlook for the future of computing.
It sure hasn't turned out like we expected. Just take our software platforms today, for instance. On one hand, our most popular mobile devices (namely the iPhone and soon the iPad) are extremely locked up and restricted, with the vendor telling you EXACTLY which applications you're allowed to run.
Otherwise, we end up targeting the web. Sure, the web is good for some things, but back in the '80s we would have laughed at anyone who said that 25 years down the road, we'd be writing serious, million-line applications hosted in a SGML document, with logic written in a scripting language that's worse than Perl.
Hell, even Mac OS X hasn't evolved much past what NeXTSTEP was in the late 1980s. Windows is only slightly better than it was then. UNIX-like systems are mostly the same. We're even using the same windows system we used back then, and it really hasn't evolved all that much, either.
Of course, then there's all the DRM shit we have floating around.
I think we peaked somewhere in the 1970s, when Smalltalk and UNIX became somewhat mature. Then we fucked up, basically disregarded those much better technologies, and ended up in the pig trough that we're in today.
i have a friend who, when his kids asked him "can we av a computer daaad", went up into the loft, got out the TRS80 and a stack of byte magazines. the kids looked at him in this funny way, but they managed to get the machine working, chewed their way through the programs, and actually had fun with it.
he then promised them that their next computer (and this was only three years ago) would be a Pentium II.
my first application i ever saw was a 5 line PET Commodore 3032 BASIC program: for i = 1 to 40 print tab(i), i next i 50 goto 10. it scrolled numbers across the screen; i understood it instantly, and have never looked back. i was eight years old, and i was writing my own games within a year, moving @ and * symbols around the screen and firing "." symbols - three kids smashing down keys and jamming the other kids because the keyboard matrix on the Commodore PET wasn't smart enough to detect all the keys we were holding down, simultaneously, trying to blast each other to bits with fullstops.
with only an 8mhz CPU, 32k of memory, a 40x25 screen and BASIC to play with, there were no "expectations" of fanciness, fonts or even graphics to get in the way. the learning curve was quick and dirty, and there were no frills to overwhelm you.
but, most importantly, there wasn't a ton of software ready-made to "spoon-feed" you.
computer education is no longer education. at a British Computing Institute talk i attended, someone there made this brilliant analogy. he said that to parents, he asks them a simple question:
"computing is no longer taught in schools (parents look quizzical), they are simply 'trained' (parents look like they vaguely get it). if this was sex instead of computing that was taught in schools, would you prefer that your kids have sex _education_ or sex _training_? (parents finally get it)".
putting kids in front of microsoft products does them absolutely no service at all. it's why the OLPC project was created, to emphasise the goal of _educating_ kids about computers, rather than _training_ them to merely _use_ computers.
we're not using technology effectively in transport either, or business or effectively using transport to move us around efficiently. or effectively using alternative energy sources even though methods have been around for decades now. or effectively handling energy consumption, waste management, environmental management, protecting children from predators, dealing with alcohol and drug abuse...
My point ? No matter what you look at from 30 years ago - we haven't made the progress that we always believed we should have by now...
If you like this, check out the Computer Chronicles the archive is hosting. It's always neat to see people reacting to old technology like it's new. Funny to hear the predictions that pan out, and even funnier to see the ones that don't. Check out the UNIX episode, a lot of what they say about UNIX applies to Linux today.
You can also find scans of some classic computer magazines at Atari Magazines and Old Computer Mags.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I was lucky enough to attend one of the only high schools in the country with access to computers in 1968. We had a teletype style terminal connected by acoustic modem to a mainframe; Fourtran 44. The teachers were pretty clueless about the technology but give a bunch of hungry kids manuals and access and stand back.
I can find accurate information much, much, much faster than I could in 1980.
So in terms of acquiring information, which is a precursor to acquiring knowledge, we are light-years ahead of where we were in 1980.
Now in terms of using technology to CONVEY information, I agree, we have lagged.
For example, in my view the presentation of Calculus has not changed much since its inception some 400 years ago. One of the biggest problems with the presentation is that we fail to bridge the gap between understanding of the abstract mathematical formulas and the concrete visualization of what they describe.
I firmly believe that computer graphics could help fill this gap but my professors still slog through crude chalk-board sketches trying to convey the concepts of area, volume, curvature, surfaces, rates of change, etc.
Every time I'm presented with a formula I'm doing mental tricks plugging in values for X & Y trying to visualize it. Computers could help here.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
Voice control reminds me of the promise of flying cars. We will have both in about 5-10 years. And Duke Nukem Forever.
"Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking of them. " Alfred North Whitehead
White boards are slightly more effective than chalk boards; they're a technological improvement.
Yes they are. Chalk dust would give you allergies, while marker fumes will get you high. Vast improvement.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Of course it were all fields around here back then...
Back in the early 80s when Clive Sinclair's little 8-bit 'micros' were all the rage in the UK, when data storage was on cassette and portable TVs stood in for monitors, 'Sinclair User' magazine used to run a column called 'Sinclairvoyance' (geddit?), which predicted how the White Heat of cheap British computer technology would revolutionise all our lives:
http://www.sincuser.f9.co.uk/
Their predictions about educations were rather wide of the mark (at least so far):
http://www.sincuser.f9.co.uk/006/sincvoy.htm
'Once the home [computer] schooling idea was accepted, however, the costs of providing education would fall dramatically. Almost the whole of the present system would no longer be needed, with consequent savings in wages and building and maintenance costs. Teachers would be replaced by a handful of people responsible for setting and updating the cassettes and marking the examination cassettes. None of the thousands of ancillary staff - caretakers, cleaners and cooks - would be needed. School transport would become a thing of the past and crossing patrols would no longer halt traffic at the busy times of the day. Additionally, vast areas of land would become available for development.'
To be fair, they recognised some of the problems with this idea:
'Schools are much more than places for learning the subjects which appear in the curriculum. They are a major stage in learning social skills. All children make friends in their neighbourhood but most friends are made at school. They also gain by having contact with others from different backgrounds. There are sufficient problems in the world caused by a lack of understanding between groups of people without increasing the divisions by removing an effective way of bringing people together.'
Some of their other predictions seem rather more prescient, if you replace 'Prestel' with 'Web' and 'Sinclair' with 'PC'. From 1982:
http://www.sincuser.f9.co.uk/005/sincvoy.htm
'The Typical-Sinclair-Users select a group of holidays in which they are interested and request more details. Those arrive on the screen immediately and are printed out...They make their booking, paying the deposit by debiting their bank account directly by Prestel...As the time for the holiday approaches the TSU family, between playing the latest game of aliens and keeping their household accounts in order, check the weather conditions at their chosen resort and the strength of the peseta against the pound - all available through Prestel...As the TSUs hate shopping, having to push their way through the crowds, they decide to buy all their holiday clothes and equipment by mail order, again using Prestel...The luggage consists of the usual suitcases but also includes a large black briefcase. When they arrive at the airport, they find many other families have the same black briefcases. All are treated with great care, are taken inside the aircraft as hand luggage and stored carefully under the seats...On reaching their hotel everyone immediately rushes to their rooms, where the secret of the black box is revealed. Inside there is a complete Sinclair computer system...The following day the TSU family goes to the beach and, in common with many others, they take their briefcase and spend half the day enjoying the sun, sea and sand and the other half playing with the Sinclair...The case also contains a device which allows the Typical-Sinclair-Users to contact their neighbours via the telephone service or collect any recorded messages on their telephone answering service...If this sounds a little far-fetched, as though the Sinclairvoyance crystal ball is even less clear than usual, consider that most of the items are already in existence and are available either for the Sinclair machines or can be adapted from hardware available with other computers.'
With the rise of Windows 3.1 and Windows 95, Microsoft ceased furthering the development of "free" (gratis) programming languages which came BUNDLED with the computer. Microsoft could have BUNDLED Visual Basic, and therefore empower their users the way that Commodore and Atari and even Apple (via Hypercard) tried to do... but instead Microsoft gambled it all on creating a *dependant* consumer class of users. That's why there was never a community of Windows users loyally subscribing to computer education magazines, and typing in program listings (the best way to learn programming). As soon as Windows became #1, all of these educational methods died.
Today most computer users do not know anything about computers. They just know rote clicks which is knowledge with a short shelf life... only until the next version of said Windows product (go into any used bookstore and check out the pricing on say a 3 year old used book for UNIX/Linux and one for Windows... the Windows book is usually under $1 because Vb6 knowledge was made worthless... while a book on Python 2.5 or PHP 5.0 still has loads of value). It's no surprise that some of the best programmers started out on these old 8 and 16 bit systems, and they're better not because these platforms were superior to today's.. no they're better because they were exposed to problem solving an an earlier age. That does not happen today.
I missed the days when PC's came with multiple programming languages for free... then I found Linux, and I realized it wasn't true that these things went away... only that Microsoft wasn't interested in hooking young kids on programming the way Atari, BBC, Apple and Commodore wanted to do (and did so well, for the time they were relevent)