jj (10/24/82)
Yes, indeed, I agree with sdcarl!lin about students on work study. I staggered through 3 years of undergraduate school as a work-study student with all my calculations done on a $5.00 plastic slide rule. I habitually got 90-95% on tests in which I knew exactly the answer in fractional form, simply bacause I didn't have the time to solve to more than 3 digits. I finally bought a calculator (4 banger) after my junior year when I had $66 left to spend for the summer, and I used it to buy a calculator. I borrowed money several times the next year to buy batteries since I couldn't afford the model with ni-cads. (AND- the first to laugh in my presence will find some serious weaknesses in my sense of humor) I can't help but think that my unlamented alma mother (expletive) is going to wind up as a school for the rich and totally underpriveleged (who get one free), with not a single merely poor person in the school. While I do agree that the idea is indeed good for engineering students to have to use computers, I think (and maybe CMU is ahead of me) that the school that does so may have to buy the computer for most of their students. This would, however, represent a complete turnaround at the financial aid office there, as they used to tell you that a calculator was "not necessary". Sometimes they would even ask you if you had a calculator, and if you said "yes" tell you that you had too much money. In short, while I think that requiring engineering students to buy computers is not all that bad, the idea will have to be VERY carefully executed to avoid locking out a great portion of the freshman class. The care and planning that were evident during most of my stay wouldn't encourage me to have a lot of hope, although I was only part of the Cyert school for one year. A question,--- what is an artist or a sculptor, of which there are a lot at CMU, going to do with a computer (or have I missed the qualifications for those required to buy one?). As an aside, when I went to CMU, the only computer available was an ancient IBM360/67 that broke twice a week and couldn't handle the load placed on it. All those 10's and 20's you hear about were, at that time (and may well still be, I'm not speaking to the place) only for C-S grad students. <flame off - sigh - I would have rather forgotten the whole experience> Don't mail me, I don't really care. If the world might, write an article. rabbit!jj
henry (10/27/82)
How bad this is depends on how vital the facilities offered by the machine are in completing courses. When I took first-year physics, many moons ago, one feature of the first lecture was a statement along the following lines: A good slide rule (not a six-inch toy) is an absolutely essential tool for this course. If you do not own one, either buy one or drop this course. You cannot possibly pass without one. I can easily visualize courses where the same comment would apply to a personal computer. Naturally, I can also visualize courses where this isn't the case, and in such cases a requirement for one would be a bit more dubious. A blanket requirement that a student own (or have access to) a personal computer, regardless of detailed choice of courses, can be justified only if: 1. The cost is low enough that anyone who can afford a university education can afford the computer. 2. The convenience offered by assuming that all students have computers is such that it is no longer worth aiming course materials etc. at people who don't. It seems to me that #1 is pretty much satisfied already. Especially in the US. It is easy to say "well, I paid for my own education, and I couldn't have afforded a computer on top of it all". Well, friends, I paid for most of my own education, and I don't see how I could possibly have managed it if I weren't north of a certain national border -- the tuition fees at US universities are enough to send a Canadian student into shock. (Tuition up here is counted in hundreds, not thousands, of dollars.) I don't want to start an argument about financial limits on the accessibility of education, which I agree are a problem. I just want to point out that anybody who has paid his own tuition in the US has already solved far worse problems than finding the money for a modest personal computer. I'm not sure about #2. I've used computer text-editing systems to the near-total exclusion of other forms of text preparation for a number of years. I'm sure I started doing this rather earlier than most undergrads at most universities, and I'm equally sure it gave me a non-trivial advantage over a poor guy with a typewriter. Given not just computers but also decent networking, the advantage would get much stronger. I vaguely remember a recent paper, in CACM I *think*, which discussed the advantages of electronic mail in teacher-student and student-student communications. I can easily see these points and other considerations putting non-computer students at an increasingly serious disadvantage. Eventually there comes a time when access to the new tool becomes so easy, and use of it becomes so important, that it is no longer worth trying to cope with the special problems of students who *don't* have access to it. However, it's not obvious to me that this time has quite come yet. Especially at places where "computer communications" means swapping floppies. Ugh. CMU may well be on the right track, although I think they are trying to push things along rather hastily. I'm not at all sure about Drexel; it is not clear to me that the standard commercial personal computers are right for the job. For students in specialties where computation and graphics are important, they may be useful enough to be justified, but otherwise it's not obvious to me. It seems to me that the key issue is one that hasn't been raised explicitly so far. There is little doubt that access to a personal computer (which in practice will often mean owning one) will shortly have such compelling advantages that doing without will be foolish. Shortly after that, these advantages will be taken for granted to the point where the cost-effectiveness of teaching computerless people -- at least in the same classrooms as the rest -- will be doubtful. The real question is not "whether" but "when". Does anybody have any thoughts on this? Clearly one can set limits on it. It's marginally possible that now is the time -- but it ought to be obvious, and it's not. It is almost certain that when we have Alan Kay's Dynabooks in volume production, the time will already have arrived. What criteria must be satisfied before we can say "now is the time"? And just so I don't sign off without offending anybody... For the immediately-foreseeable future, it will be very hard to beat the cost- effectiveness of a keyboard for serious man->computer communication. Ok, probably you want a mouse and some other minor amenities as well, but for text manipulation (possibly the single most important use of personal computers), keyboards just cannot be beat. Voice-input technology is primitive, and even if all the technical problems were solved it would still have serious warts. Note that I distinguish between casual use of computer facilities by Joe Public and serious use by students and such, and am discussing the latter. Electronic "telepathy" is probable in the long run but unlikely to arrive tomorrow. Handwriting recognition cannot compare on speed, ease, and accuracy. Keyboards are it. Now, it is not terribly hard to learn to touch-type. Speed comes only with practice, but working with these bloody machines will give you lots of that. So... Resolved: the ability to touch-type should be an absolute prerequisite for all senior Computer Science courses, and should (given the increasing importance of computers) be seriously considered as a prerequisite for *all* science courses. You wouldn't expect to be able to pass English without being able to read well; why should you expect to pass Computer Science without being able to type well? Henry Spencer U of Toronto
clemc@sri-unix (10/27/82)
#R:utzoo:-254500:ucbcad:13400003:000:266 ucbcad!clemc Oct 27 10:36:00 1982 Instead of a lot of flaming about What CMU will do. Or how the student's feel. I suggest anyone interested in this topic get a copy of another information medium: Newsweek. This week's article on Education is: "The Computerization of CMU" P91 Nov 1,1982 issue.
jcwinterton (11/01/82)
Surely, with the technology changing so fast, schools cannot expect to require the PURCHASE of a piece of obsolescnt equipment without a guarantee that the equipment will be of use throughout the course of study. (naturally, the answer to this question is: Yes!). )(*&%^$%$%$%!!! It seems that the microsystem revolution has now reached the ridiculous. I wonder if it will every reach the sublime??? John Winterton