vernonw@dasys1.UUCP (Vernon L. Williams) (10/30/88)
:a For those people who responded to my query I send a hearty "thanks" though it seems that the Board of Education has found a company in Ohio to do the job for them. I'd be interested in finding out what the actual purpose of this investment of time and money is...especially after Murph Seawall's interesting letter to me...too bad I'm twice removed from the people who are doing this. What do you all think? should a computer be modified so that only "approved" software can be run on it, when that computer MAY be in an educational setting? Should it be done at all???? -- vernon williams Big Electric Cat Public UNIX ..!cmcl2!phri!dasys1!vernonw
abc@BRL.MIL (Brint Cooper) (10/31/88)
Vernon Williams asks: > What do you all think? should a computer be modified so that only > "approved" software can be run on it, when that computer MAY be in an > educational setting! Should it be done at all???? I've never seen anyone in the employ of a public Board of Education who knows any more than a classroom teacher about what software should be run in an educational setting. This is a strangely dangerous precedent and is an unwarrated slur on the abilities of their teachers. In addition, one wonders what the Board of Education fears from allowing people to run whatever they want on the educational computers. Finally, how does one learn programming skills if he or she is not permitted to run his/her programs on the instructional machine? I'm sure glad that I don't live in Ohio! _Brint
mcgurrin@MITRE.ARPA (11/01/88)
I agree with Brint on teachers versus school board. Similar to school boards dictating what books to put into libraries (this is worse than most cases of the latter, where certain books are banned, but at least the library isn't limited to a few books on some "accepted" list). On another point, I think computers can be used in many cases as a tool like a a film projector. Nothing wrong with this type of use, and one doesn't spend time studying how to run a projector or how motors work to use one in history class. For this use, programming access by students isn't needed. Two other PC uses are what I'll call "basic computer literacy" and "real computer science" classes. I think basic literacy classes have a very limited use. Most students will pick it up from the tool use in other classes. I can see a benefit in the job market if a student has been exposed to spreadsheets or word processing, but this is strictly as a trades type of class. Otherwise, teach a real computers course, it's a much better use of limited time. Teach how a computer works, start with basic ASSEMBLY language programs, then move into a higher language. My own high school had PDP-8 machines (pre-PC days). The "computer programming " course was mostly a joke. Rules like don't ever touch the switches on the front. Don't worry about what the lights and switches mean or do, etc. Even the instructor could only boot the machine by rote memory. The computer science course, on the other hand, was great. It turned out to be my only organized exposure to assembly language, and down the road it let me at least understand the principles involved, even if I've rarely actually programmed in assembly much. Also concepts like indirect addressing make it a lot easier to understand pointers in C. The folks in the C course I took recently who had only been exposed to FORTRAN really had trouble with the whole concept. In the course we first reviewed the history and basic theory, than did things like write a teletype printer driver, etc. Thanen moved into Focal programming. PCs offer the same opportunities. One of the reasons our school bought PDPs was that so much more valuable experience could be gained when compared with the time-sharing system they had been using. Final comment: Make sure your kids at least know how to type, even if they don't know PCs. I feel sorry for the mostly older guys around where I work who must slowly hunt and peck around a keyboard. O.K., really final comment this time: I'd be surprised if whatever solution they come up with really keeps out the dedicated hacker kids. They'll see it as a challenge to be met (maybe that's the educational objective :-)), but it will probably play havoc with legitimate use, especially copy protection schemes. Anyone want to take bets on this? [note to net gods: just kidding].
vernonw@dasys1.UUCP ("Vernon L. Williams") (11/01/88)
well, you have misread me slightly Brint
> I'm sure glad that I don't live in Ohio!
While this may be true, this has nothing to do with the "lock".
The lock is for use one one computer at one site so far as I know, and that
site is in New York NOT Ohio....>>>I<<< went to highschool in Ohio and had
more-or-less free access to the Apple II's that the school had in its
computer room. So leave Ohio out of it...abc@BRL.MIL (Brint Cooper) (11/02/88)
My apologies. Fingers were flying faster than neurons. > The lock is for use one one computer at one site so far as I know, and that > site is in New York ... > So leave Ohio out of it... But my opinion of "locking" any computer (except, perhaps, one in an embedded application) stands. _Brint