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Ask Slashdot: What Were You Taught About Computers In High School?

Posted by timothy on from the dug-song-playing-dirty-tetris-at-high-volume dept.

An anonymous reader writes "What was taught to you about computers in High School? Computer use and computer science in schools are regular headlines, but what 'normal' do we compare it to? It's not a shared reference. A special class with Commodore PETs was set up just after I graduated, and I'm only starting to grey. Everybody younger has had progressive levels of exposure. What was 'normal' for our 40-, 30-, and 20-year olds here? And how well did it work for you, and your classmates?" For that matter, what's it like now — if you're in middle or high school now, or know students who are, what's the tech curriculum like?

5 of 632 comments (clear)

  1. In my day... by pinroot · · Score: 5, Funny

    I graduated in 1973. What did I learn about computers there? Nothing at all.

    You damn kids get off my lawn...

  2. Re:In the US? Not so much... by dywolf · · Score: 4, Funny

    Clueless PE teacher for me.

    "If you install Doom on one of these computers again, I'll have you expelled. You could have infested every computer in here with a virus."

    [the computers were not networked]

    --
    The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
  3. All we had were IBM... by couchslug · · Score: 4, Funny

    .....Selectric typewriters. (Class of 1978 represent!)

    I'd tell you to get off my lawn, but it went underwater when Pangea split up.

    --
    "This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
  4. Re:In the US? Not so much... by arth1 · · Score: 4, Funny

    LOGO, heh. "Turtle Down." Good times.

    Turtles all the way down.

  5. Re:In the US? Not so much... by arth1 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Early 2000's: my brother got clueless music teacher, but it was more inane - "change the wallpaper again and you'll be suspended, you dirty computer hacker, you".

    A favourite prank of mine (later in life than high school, I have to admit) was to take a screen capture of the desktop, and set it as the background. Then move most of the desktop icons into a directory.
    For Vista/W7, the same can be done to gadgets like the clock and weather ones.

    A variant is to set the screen saver to a picture of the user's desktop with a web browser open to something like the Rebecca Black Fan Club or an IM that proclaims "I'm pregnant!!!"

    For Windows, also try setting the sounds to new samples consisting of five or more minutes of silence followed by an actual sound.