Computer years (1980 - 1990)
The Older I Get, The Greater I was
My involvement with computers and education 1980-1990
In case I start succumbing to the vaguery of old age that produces a losing of memory, I needed to record the achievements(?) of the ten years of my life when I was either a visionary or foolhardy: “the computer years”.
I have deliberately avoided using names where I haven't had permission to, as I respect people's privacy. I do, however, hope this is a factual account. To that end, if you, reading this, realise that you were part of those years, I would love to hear from you: to correct mistakes, affirm my account or just to say “Hello”.
When my first wife and I went to stay with her parents, I frequently found myself filling time reading her brother’s Practical Electronics magazine. (I may have the title wrong but it included circuits for DIY projects and I remember using one such circuit to make a flashing light controller, for a friend's son’s disco, that responded to the music. Quite why my brother-in-law got the magazine, I wasn't sure. He was into motorbikes and, although he was often to be seen with an adjustable wrench, I never recall seeing him with a soldering iron in his hand.)
Of overriding interest to me when reading this journal were articles and advertisements for computers. These were the days when calculators were ‘cool’ and Clive Sinclair sold one in kit form. Apple had also introduced the Pet which was too expensive for me to consider trying to persuade my wife it would be a worthwhile investment from our joint funds.
But then Clive Sinclair introduced the ZX80 computer available only by mail order and in kit form but still too expensive to contemplate on a young teacher's salary; what would I use a computer for? Instead, I persuaded my wife to let me spend £5 on the instruction manual (available separately) which mainly comprised a “Teach yourself Sinclair Basic” section.
I had always been interested in the idea of computers as a teaching tool. When I had been in the sixth form at school, I had made a “binary adder” (following plans in a book) which was an adding machine requiring the operator to change the input and output numbers between decimal and binary. We had been told this was the language computers used. At that time computers were massive machines that one or two universities had but you probably needed a PhD to get your hands on. I knew then that one day they would be used in schools. By removing possible errors in computation, learning and understanding of mathematical principles would be unheeded.
I had experimented with branching text (programmed learning) ideas and had produced a booklet attempting to help children having difficulty with long multiplication. It used multiple choice answers which had been selected to show up all the major mistakes children made and analyse them. This helped me come to grips with the decision branching required in programming and I was soon writing BASIC programs without a computer to try them on.
During that summer I worked, when required on hot (busy) days, at the open-air lido as a lifeguard to earn enough to buy my own computer. I wanted to be able to be in command of these tools. I reasoned when they came into the classroom, I wanted teachers to determine their use, not computer programmers.
The ZX81 had been launched and I ordered one. When it arrived I immediately started trying out the programs I had written. (I also purchased a small (4”) mono television to use as a monitor.)
That Christmas we were staying at my in-laws. I took my computer with me. (Frequently there was not much to do when we stayed there.) My middle brother-in-law and his wife had bought themselves a new game for Christmas: “Boggle”. They briefly showed it to me before going out and telling me they'd play it with me when they got back. I set to work writing a computer version of it. The random letters (in a 2D array) were displayed on the screen for a short time before going blank. I practised with it so that when they returned I was already an expert in their new game.
In school, I had the responsibility for the bottom maths set. I knew I could use the computer to make maths more exciting for them. I wrote some simple programs and took it into school. It proved a great success. Programs on the ZX81 were limited by graphics and memory. Extra memory (RAM packs) would “fall off” causing the machine to crash. For class use, it was better, if possible, to keep within the 1K on-board memory. My favourite short program was “Take Off”, in which the screen depicted a rocket sitting at the end of a fuel line. Random subtraction questions flashed on the screen to which the answer would be a single digit requiring a quick touch on the appropriate key. Correct answers advanced the fuel. If sufficient correct answers could be given in time, the child was rewarded by seeing the rocket take off.
That Easter, I attended my first MAPE conference in Exeter. I don't know where I first heard of “Micros And Primary Education” but I had joined and subscribed to their magazine. I was amazed I was not the only primary teacher doing things with computers – and they were doing things other than maths. Networking, I also managed to exchange some programs and acquire a list of contacts who would prove useful later. The government had recently introduced a scheme whereby every secondary school in the country would receive a computer and it was being suggested a similar scheme could be introduced for primary schools.
Back at school, I had started up a computer club after school. So many children attended, it had to be held in the school hall with my ZX81 displaying via the large television. The simple programming was used to display patterns created by simple mathematical “play”. I had a request from the infant school that one of their gifted children could attend. That child went on to do amazing things with a ZX81, getting it to do things many thought impossible, which he published in computer journals. He was so determined to study computers at Cambridge University, I heard he got the required four straight “A” level passes.
A computer exhibition was announced at Westminster. I attended. When I arrived, the queue outside was reputed to be four hours long(!) but I discovered one of my pupils near the front with his parents who let me join them. Inside it was like a church jumble sale with trestle tables but so crowded it was impossible to see anything. Thus it was I found myself at the quietest stall where a man had a piece of circuit board attached to the back of a ZX81 and a couple of LED's on it flashing away. I didn't really know what it was but was determined to take something back. That started my experimentation with computer control technology. One of my first programs utilising it also used a continuous cassette tape (programs were loaded and saved on tape cassettes) and my own simple program for managing the school fund I had just taken over the running of. The program automatically saved (twice in case one copy corrupted) the updated details when I entered them on the machine.
At this time, the BBC had been showing an interest in computers. They had set a challenge for companies to produce a computer with colour graphics and a target price of £100.
The Parents' Association showed an interest with what I was doing with their children with computers and asked for me to attend one of their meetings to let them know. They had previously provided the school with a video camera. This I set up in the classroom as a “fly on the wall” during a maths session. I was able to show them a short section during the meeting. I was asked if I would like a computer for school and if so what. I knew the BBC micro details had just been announced. Sinclair and Acorn had both produced machines. The Sinclair version, the “Spectrum” was £125 (with 16K of RAM memory plus 16K ROM) or £175 (with 48K memory plus 16K ROM) whilst the Acorn machine was £195 (with 32K of total memory) or £225 (with 64K of total memory) with better graphics and keyboard but less usable memory.
A few days previously, I had attended another computer exhibition where Clive Sinclair had announced the Spectrum. I had ordered one. Being careful with finances, I had decided to get the cheaper one. Thus it was that a few days later I received my Spectrum (no. 6 off the production line) whereas months later those who had ordered the bigger memory version were still waiting.
I provided the parents with costing details for a single low memory Spectrum with monochrome television but they wanted costings for higher memory specification, colour televisions and enough for one per class which I duly provided. They had been saving to enclose the swimming pool to extend its use but had discovered the county would not provide any contribution towards the running costs - which was a legacy they felt they couldn't saddle future committees with - so they had money to spend. I was given enough to order 6 sets of 48K Spectrums with colour monitors and the new “microdrive” fast storage devices Sinclair had just introduced and the odd little printers.
As an extra, the Parents' Association asked if I would run some sessions to show them what the children would be doing with the computers. I readily obliged and ran a series of well attended hands-on evenings where they were introduced not only to the “drill and practice” programs but also the problem solving scenarios I believed were far better. “The sum total of human knowledge is doubling every four years,” is a quote I remember hearing once. As I told the parents, if it were possible for me to teach the children all the facts in the world and be able to condense them onto a single side of A4 paper, by the time those children were my age, they would need a telephone directory to hold all the facts. Teaching facts was no longer an option, we had to equip children to be able to discover for themselves.
At about this time, I had become well known to the educational psychologist through successfully trialling a new “positive teaching” scheme with slow learners using targeted one-minute-a-day tasks and special graphing of results. He was very interested in the motivational possibilities of the computer and asked if I would give a demonstration at a meeting in September. It was now July; I had the summer holiday to prepare.
During the holiday, I wrote a Cloze procedure program (or, rather, adapted the idea from a listing provide by MAPE for the Research Machines computers secondary schools were getting). This was the mainstay of my demonstration (though loading problems and poor visibility of the monitor – the room was overcrowded – detracted from it).
I went on to write a number of programs which I donated to a teachers' library from which software was available at low cost with a few pence royalty to the author. My “noughts and crosses” maths, the “Cloze procedure”, “Take off”, a “Treasure Hunt” maths program and a “Pelican crossing” simulation became best sellers and made five of the top six best sellers. (One of the school governors, a successful business man, volunteered to set me up with my own company to produce educational software but I declined as I felt my real vocation was actually in the classroom. I might have become an educational Bill Gates?)
I bought few programs for the computers: a word processor and a “Turtle Graphics” program were the main ones, together with “Vu3D” (a CAD program from Psion) and “Weather Forecaster” from Longman.
It was hard to get the other teachers motivated to use the computers – even though I'd volunteered to do all the setting up for them and had attempted to enthuse them by running after school sessions they didn't attend – so I often ended up with 8 computers in my room: the six school machines together with my own Spectrum and ZX81. With four children assigned to each machine, it enabled two to be at the keyboard and two working away from it at any one time. The other teachers only showed an interest when a visiting inspector or adviser was expected. Then they wanted the machines running something that could take care of itself and keep their children quiet and apparently learning!
Having become involved with the local branch of MAPE, we often spent a Saturday somewhere in the Chilterns area, usually at a public library, with children showing the public how computers were enhancing their education.
It was at that MAPE conference at Exeter that I had first met Logo, the computer programming language developed by Seymour Pappert that helped children learn by turning them into teachers themselves and exploring the learning process; becoming active participants in learning and problem solving. This I could see as an exciting use of computers rather than slavishly copying ideas that had previously been presented in books or “chalk and talk”. Unfortunately, although it had merits, most teachers who discovered Logo only used it for its “Turtle Graphics”, since this seemed the easiest and most accessible path, and missed the wealth of language development potential of Logo. However full Logo was only available on Research Machines computers and a Texas Instruments machine. Although I had a turtle graphics program, I found the CAD program, “VU3D”, better. One of my slow-learning, hard-to-motivate, boys managed to design cars using this program (involving considerable three-dimensional plotting and measurement). After sending his work to the producers, Psion, they used a similar picture amongst their advertising materials for the program.
Meanwhile the Department for Industry had announced the “computers for primary schools scheme”. Schools could purchase a single Research Machines 480Z computer, a BBC Acorn computer or the Sinclair Spectrum at half price. Since local education authorities were to provide support, they made recommendations as to which models schools should buy. Most schools and authorities, not knowing any better, decided to opt for the one in the middle, pricewise, and chose the BBC computer which was shamelessly plugged on nearly every television programme at the time and featured in broadcast support packages. My authority, Buckinghamshire, supported the 480Z. It was the most expensive and least user-friendly so many schools decided to make the case for something different. I asked for a Spectrum. I was interviewed by my Primary (and Science) Adviser. He and I had a great rapport from when I had hosted a science fair at the school previously. He acknowledged immediately I knew what I was talking about and would use the machines well and had no hesitation supporting my request with the one proviso that I might provide support for any other schools who chose the Spectrum route. It seemed there were many schools that chose Spectrums and I ran a series of after-school sessions for teachers which I called “Familiarisation and Awareness Courses for TeacherS”. (Acronyms are everything!) I must have trained about 40 teachers in this way.
I had also introduced my three year old niece to the computer. My youngest brother-in-law bought one and I wrote a shape recognition program, adaptable to include simple number work later, for my niece.
At that time, “concept keyboards” were all the rage. At extra expense, a touch sensitive pad could be attached to the BBC computer with programmable squares to tie in with whatever software was produced for them. However, there were different sizes and they were a chore to set up. I already knew, from watching my niece, they weren't really necessary but found I could easily adapt a Spectrum by carefully peeling off the rubber keypad and could attach my own picture keypads every bit as good as the concept keyboards without the expense. But they didn't catch on.
Meanwhile, computer control had become something of my speciality. When the initial enthusiasm for the after-school computer club had cooled sufficiently for numbers to be more manageable, I introduced control programming to the members. Sinclair BASIC handled the task extremely easily. Clive Sinclair had boasted you could control a power station with a ZX81. Perhaps not a power station but my children got it to turn on lights and electric motors easily. (Bells weren't so good; the short radio waves emitted by the sparking contacts caused the computer to crash.) From my science budget, I purchased a better control interface box for the school. This ported well onto the Spectrums. I started writing a programmable control language for it so the user could use English phrases like, “If sensor 1 is on, turn on 2”. I felt it was a much better use of the computer than just producing random maths questions which only mirrored the traditional textbook teaching.
Another innovative use was email. This was before the internet had developed. British Telecom introduced “Prestel”. Someone produced a Prestel adapter for the Spectrum. The computer could “talk” down the telephone line to the Prestel computer where some pages of facts were available and also a bulletin board. I found a message from a teacher in Stockton-on-Tees who wanted to find another school he could send electronic messages to. Thus it was that children from my class became the first to send an email to another school.
The head teacher of Norton Glebe primary, our partner school in this enterprise, contacted the BBC. There was a programme on Radio four called “Chip Shop” that encouraged computer enthusiasts by looking at what things people were doing with them. Iver Heath being nearer London than Stockton, an interviewer, Linda Lewis, was sent to interview me. This had to be conducted at my home as that was where the messages were sent and received. My pupils wrote their messages, using a program I had written, at school and I took the tape home and relayed it, also downloading any return messages to take back into school the next day.
In talking with Linda, she asked what else we did and pricked her ears up when I said I had run evenings to teach the parents what their children were doing.
This led to her bringing a Breakfast Time TV crew to my school a few weeks later when we had an evening where the children taught the parents what they were doing with the machines. And we had our few minutes of fame.
We had so many applications running that evening, the television couldn't show everything. One of the most interesting to my mind was the lighthouse. We had had a mini topic on communication in which, amongst other things, the use of signalling lights was considered. Of course, traffic lights had made a marvellous use of the control interface but a group of boys had built a very realistic lighthouse with a bulb they could flash to show the different flash codes of the different lighthouses round the coast from data they had obtained after writing to Trinity House. Although written as a simple BASIC program, the boys demonstrated they understood how the figures in the data rows could be picked up and operated on to provide the durations of ons and offs for the light, by inventing lighthouses for parents and providing them with their unique flash codes added to the program.
It was the Chip Shop radio program that also brought me to the attention of Clive Sinclair. A Sinclair computers in education exhibition was being held in London and I was contacted to see whether I could attend with children to send messages to and from my school and the exhibition hall. This wasn't actually possible because we couldn't use the school telephone line. However, I agreed to take tapes of the messages to the exhibition.
On the day of the exhibition there was a one-day transport strike in London. It meant that very many who were due to turn up didn't. It was a shame for Clive who was also using this opportunity to launch his new computer, the “QL” which, using a 16 bit processor instead of the 8 bit ones then available on other machines, was ahead of its time. As the main educational innovation, Sinclair was also launching Sinclair Logo. There was a race on to provide Logo on the BBC computer (for which eventually four versions were produced which wasn't easy as that computer couldn't cope with the memory requirements very well).
There was a problem. The person who was to have launched Logo did not make it to the exhibition due to the travel chaos. In desperation the plea went out for anyone who knew Logo. I was in the right place at the right time and managed to show what little I knew . It was sufficient for Sinclair to let me walk away at the end of the exhibition with a beta test version of the language which only became fully available some months later.
I also ordered a QL. Months later, magazines were asking whether it did actually exist – but I had played on one and became one of the first to own one. My science and primary teaching adviser also got me to buy one for the school. It was good in that alongside BASIC, it had turtle graphics installed but there was very little software and I wasn't sure I wanted to devote my time writing new programs for it. It (and the infamous C5 “car”) was Sinclair's downfall as he'd insisted on equipping it with microdrives instead of more robust floppy discs other machines were using.
A few weeks later, I was contacted at school by someone from the Advisory Unit for Computer Based Education in Hatfield. He came to see me. He had been working with Research machines Logo to see whether he could use it as a control language using an interface for that dinosaur and what he called CLARE: “Control Logo And the Real Environment”. He had also managed to get hold of a beta test version of Sinclair Logo and when he saw what I was doing with control on the Spectrum, he went away and wrote a control logo extension we could use with our Spectrum Logo and our control box. I abandoned my project of writing my own control programming language as Logo was demonstrably better.
Meanwhile, our communications project was reaching a conclusion but we looked again at traffic lights. I got a book from the library that described the criteria used by road traffic planners to decide upon traffic light siting and we decided to investigate the staggered road junction near the school where a mini roundabout had recently been installed. The children recorded vehicle movements along the twelve possible routes during an afternoon using Ministry of Transport weightings. This we entered on a data base. We had obtained a road layout plan of the junction from the county council, together with a plan of the Denham roundabout (interchange under the M40) which was then the largest roundabout in Europe, which was later revamped as a two way roundabout with traffic light controlled junctions.
I wrote to GEC and Plessey to see what information they could send me about traffic light systems. GEC couldn't have been more helpful. They sent me a pack of brochures for different traffic lights and also included a long full listing of the BASIC program that controlled the traffic lights on the A4 through Slough where there was a linked light scheme to control the speed of traffic.
Plessey sent a two liner saying they thought the topic was too difficult for junior age children!
I wanted to prove Logo was more than a fancy drawing tool, so I started experimenting with the children. I knew it was a programming language so what sort of programs did the children want to write?
I divided the class into six groups of five to work collaboratively on producing a computer “story”. I had to keep close track on all they were doing and experiment myself to find out how to do the things they wanted.
One group produced their version of the nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty. There were a series of pictures created using turtle graphics, with captions below telling the rhyme and an attempt at producing at least some of the notes of the music accompaniment.
Another group programmed a toy crane I had bought cheaply and managed to wire up to the control interface, to pick up small loads and deposit them elsewhere.
Another group produced an electronic newspaper with pages devoted to things going on in the school and another group a database of their friends (a page for each).
Yet another group tried to produce a game similar to Cluedo. There was a map of a country house with rooms and weapons and characters. They didn't finish the program (perhaps they were a little too ambitious?) but the branching text type of adventure story was immediately hit upon by the children. I could see it was an easy route into Logo programming, not dependent upon turtle graphics and developing language and reasoning skills rather than just mathematical.
I was to develop their ideas further later.
At a regional MAPE Saturday meeting, we were “introduced” to control technology by two different presenters.
The first (using a BBC computer) had a control box with jack plug leads to different modules: light, buzzer, etc. and a control language on the computer that was not as intuitive or easy as the program I had started developing.
The afternoon presentation was much more basic. It was a kind of “Do It Yourself” philosophy which I immediately embraced. He showed us “Jinx” construction techniques which I was to develop further later. (See www.juniorinventor.com for details.)
I rejected the expensive box and plug in modules for many reasons: they were expensive, too much was done for the children who could just use the kit for one exercise to complete a task, problem solving was minimal, the programming language was abysmal but, above all, having a lamp on what appeared to be a single cable terminating in a single pin (jack plug) could negate any developing concepts of electric circuits.
I employed “junk” technology with the children when I returned to the classroom. A “buggy” made from strips of wood, card, two drinks cans, a couple of paper clips, a rubber band and a cheap electric motor proved far better than any shop bought toy.
I had become a regular contributor to MAPE's magazine, “Microscope” and one or two other journals for teachers particularly those covering computers in schools. Microscope had started giving away tapes of free computer programs for the Research Machines computer and the BBC computer. I volunteered to exchange these for members with Spectrums for compilations of useful little Spectrum programs most of which I wrote in Sinclair BASIC.
I continued writing for various publications for a few years. MESU (“Microelectronics in Education Support Unit” - the quango set up to provide assistance to schools as they received their half price computers) took two of my booklets of Logo programs (a “starter” and a booklet of communication ideas) to issue with the support pack that went out to all schools. (Though missed deadlines somewhere meant they never actually made it.) A couple of years later I was to spend a week with MESU helping produce computer work packs for schools.
My exploits attracted various visitors. Amongst them were some researchers engaged in a project entitled “Information Technology and the Learning of Information Skills”. They interviewed me in the head's study but declined to visit the classroom. I don't know whatever came of that study.
Another visitor was a head teacher from Hereford. He was on a course in Birmingham and, as part of his work, was making a video of how computers were being (or should be) used in the primary classroom. He loved the day he spent with my class and said it was great to see how things should be done rather than the didactic instruction employed by most of the other practitioners he'd visited. Unfortunately the video was unusable, I did eventually get a copy but it was shot with blinding light streaming through the windows behind the children rendering the subjects too dark. The classroom was also so busy it was not easy to focus on any one activity.
However much I enjoyed all I did at Iver Heath, I knew it was time to move on. I had risen rapidly from probationary teacher to post holder for science to acting deputy head. The head himself, however, decided to take retirement as a new deputy was appointed. He took the reins as acting head whilst I continued for a second year this time as his deputy, though I never had the same rapport nor respect for him as I did his predecessor. In discussing options with my primary and science adviser, he suggested I might consider following his path, becoming an advisor for primary science. In the meantime he'd support me if I applied for a one year's secondment on a computer diploma course in Birmingham. I'd told him, although I had been running courses for teachers, I felt a bit of a charlatan, not having been on a computer course myself. He told me that the county's courses were way below the level I was already at.
(I was the first person he told he'd gained a job as chief adviser for Hampshire and said to me, “I may be wanting a computer adviser sometime!”)
When I left Iver Heath, I donated a “Challenge Cup” to the school. There were already numerous trophies to be won for all kinds of sporting events. I had not been sporty at school myself and thought there should be some sort of award for some other educational achievement, preferably of a problem-solving nature. (The television program, “The Great Egg Race” had been popular a year or two before.) As a suggestion, the first challenge could be to make a device to carry a load across the hall and return by itself. I wonder whether the cup is still used?
The Birmingham course (as all colleges) started after the school term had already commenced. I used some of the time to visit the Norton Glebe school we had been in communication with and was inspired by the open plan school with class bays that provided quieter areas for learning.
I had also arranged to meet with the Sinclair educational advisor, but he had to cancel at the last minute. I hadn't realised but Sinclair computers was just going into a critical stage fuelled by a couple of bad choices by Clive Sinclair: the microdrives on the QL, and the C5 road vehicle.
I felt at home at Newman College: a teacher training college affiliated to Birmingham University; it was the birthplace of MAPE and I had met the tutors before.
Our course included programming (in BASIC and Logo), philosophy and the training of teachers, with a high practical component. On one morning per week, we went to a local school to work with some of their children and computers. On Mondays we were expected to spend some time in our “home” schools working with a class or group so the weekly pattern became: working at Iver Heath on Monday morning, travelling up to Birmingham on Monday evening and travelling home again on Friday evening. I used the time in schools to help with what would be my major study for the diploma.
Shortly after I started at Newman College, I had a visit from someone who had a secondment from Walsall to look at computer learning. He had focussed on Logo and had helped set up the British Logo User Group (BLUG). He was also interested in computer control and was interested to see the control Logo I had. He was working with Logotron Logo which had become the best of the Logos available for the BBC computer. Now he developed the control Logo extension for Logotron Logo.
As a member of MAPE and as a committee member of BLUG, I frequently provided presentations at conferences and attended the technology and education exhibitions. At the BETT (British Educational Training and Technology) exhibition at the Barbican Centre in London in January 1985, I helped on the MAPE stall, which provided me with many more contacts and some freebie software to evaluate (most of it not very good). It was also at that exhibition that I visited the Lego stand to see their new control box. Many teachers experimenting with computer control were using the boxes with the jack plug modules which I detested, so I was pleased to see the two terminals for each input and output on the Lego box were reasonably obvious whilst there was still the convenience of being able just to plug in modules for those teachers who really wanted it to be that simple. However, I was dismayed to see their control program: “Lego Lines”. I talked with the representative about my misgivings and how wonderful Logo was as a control language. I was quizzed about Logo and its origins etc. It wasn't long afterwards that Lego produced Lego Logo (effectively the full Logotron Logo with control extensions built in) and Logo's initiator, Seymour Pappert became the “Lego professor of Education” at MIT, or whichever university he was working at at that time.
The teacher who had visited me at Birmingham did not return to the classroom when his secondment ran out but joined Logotron. (Logotron were eventually taken over by Longmans and became Longman Logotron.)
The major study I undertook as part of my diploma was to look at starting points for Logo. I attempted to provide work cards introducing numerous ideas in the form of inspiration cards, learning cards and progression cards. The problem, of course, is Logo is meant to be open ended allowing pupils to experiment and be creative so cards should be no more than suggestions and not a prescriptive course to follow. What I was attempting was to find a way teachers entrenched in old didactic learning methods could begin to embrace the new learning methods computers enabled: to develop skills rather than present facts. I had observed where children wanted to go in free “play” with Logo and provided a number of suggestion cards that let them explore those ideas further.
It was whilst I was on the course, I heard about a Logo exhibition. It was organised by Inter-Action Community Trust, of whom I must admit, I'd never heard. It was held in a marquee at Covent Garden and was principally a showcase for work they had been doing with under-privileged London kids.
I borrowed half a dozen of the Iver Heath Spectrums and took them to showcase many of the ideas we had worked on.
The director of InterAction asked if I'd visit them, which I did a couple of weeks later at a remaining warehouse building in the midst of cleared space at the about-to-be-developed London Docklands site. We had a discussion about the work I was doing and effectively I drew up my ideal job specification without realising they were then going to offer me that job. However, when we started talking finance, I discovered the salary I was on at the time was higher than that of InterAction's director. He said he'd talk with his trustees and see whether they could afford me but I knew what the answer would be and they never got back to me. However, they did later appoint someone to such a post and Inter Action formed a fruitful alliance with BLUG; we used their new premises on their boat on the Thames, for committee meetings.
Towards the end of the course, as we all wondered where our futures would take us, Keith Joseph, the then minister for education, announced an initiative that would take the best practitioners in maths and science and make them advisory teachers to help develop new teaching skills in their colleagues. I succeeded in gaining a post as a science advisory teacher in Croydon. That authority was the jewel in Maggie Thatcher's eye and was progressing and trialling new ideas including making all their present advisers into inspectors so their appointed advisory teachers effectively became the advisers on the cheap (which meant I got to attending adviser conferences other advisory teachers were deemed too lowly for).
Now I was part of a team initially of two, but later three, in charge of developing science and technology in the one hundred nursery, infants and junior schools in Croydon. (Usefully my brief also went to age 13 so could encompass problems of transfer between primary and secondary phases.)
But it wasn't supposed to be about introducing computers as there was already an IT adviser who concentrated on secondary schools, considering primaries beneath him. As part of my involvement with teachers, I managed to get some enthused with computer control. As a 'bribe' I could offer them control Logo and a control interface on loan (with my support, of course) which they would be able to keep if they showed they had utilised them usefully in their children's education.
Working with one young enthusiastic teacher and his class, I was in part reminded of myself years earlier. One of his groups of children built a lift shaft operated from the computer with the lift proceeding up or down to the number floor typed on the keyboard.
Croydon was to host a big exhibition and day conference for members of the CBI to discover how the engineers of tomorrow were being taught. The 34 secondary schools each had stands to show their pupils' achievements. Almost as an after thought, the junior sector were asked if we would like a single stand to showcase the work of the 100 primaries. I displayed the Logo-controlled lift model, which to my mind was the best exhibit there. Wandering around the exhibition in my lunch hour, I was accosted by some important CBI big wig who asked who I was. When I told him I was helping primary schools develop science and technology, he was a bit disparaging that all we did was play with bits of cardboard. I took him to see the lift model which took the wind out of his sails.
I was pleased to be one of the “top ten” in the country selected by the Inspectors overseeing the Keith Joseph initiative, to spend a week on a “guinea pig” course at Nottingham University with David Jinx, whose construction techniques I was employing, to help devise a course for other advisory teachers. I, of course, ensured control Logo had a place.
In January 1986, all the science advisory teachers in the country attended the Association for Science Education conference in York. In one session, in groups we had to discuss the strategies we were using and developing for disseminating best practice in our areas. The “winner” from each group then had to make their case to all the science advisory teachers. The overall winner then had to address the entire 5000 delegates at the conference. I was that person.
A little while later, I was asked to attend a meeting in London with one of the advisory teachers from neighbouring Kingston, with whom I got on well. We were introduced to a teaching machine that used video discs. There were three such systems vying for a place in the market at the time. Currently, the Phillips laser disc had stolen the edge by being chosen as the format to store the doomsday material on. (Schools around the country had been asked to provide local information which was later collated on two twelve inch laser discs.) We were shown the Video Home Disc system with some American programmes to evaluate. Although we could see its potential, the interactive programmes were deplorable. I remember one of them was a screen depiction of titration. My reservations were, I was not sure it should be in the junior curriculum and it would be better to have the actual equipment and carry out the experiment oneself but the worst was when delaying to answer a question, it came up with: “What's the matter, bud? Are you a girl?”!
I did trial a few machines in some of the Croydon schools, however, as did the other adviser. She being a Marilyn Munroe lookalike, it was little surprise they used her to demonstrate at trade and education exhibitions and ultimately she went to work for them.
During my Croydon years, I organised (with the help of Inter-Action) a 5-day “Logo workshops” course using my old college, Southlands, at Wimbledon Common as the venue with my BLUG colleagues as tutors. Later I was to return the compliment to one of our BLUG colleagues, acting as a tutor on a weekend Logo course he organised in Canterbury.
We needed to borrow some computers for the workshops and one of my contacts, who had written the introduction manual for the BBC computer amongst other things, gave me the name of someone at Atari computers. He said to mention his name. When I phoned the company, I wasn't even allowed to get through to his secretary without being cross-examined, but when I mentioned my my contact's name, it granted me immediate access to the man himself, whom I hadn't realised was the MD of Atari computers, and I was lent a dozen brand new ST computers that were just being launched at the time.
One of the schools my science adviser colleague was supporting was having an open technology day and I was asked if I could help out, which I readily did. It was a multi racial school in which 22 different languages were spoken. I spent most of the day with three girls from three different cultures, only one of whom spoke any English - but they translated for each other – and I was teaching them yet another language, control logo. However, since in Logo, the programmers define their own words and meanings, there wasn't an obstacle and they had fun programming the crane I had taken in.
There was one occasion during the Croydon years that the IT specialist bought in an IT adviser for a day whose name was very similar to mine. She was well known to me as we both served on the same committees for MAPE and, having similar names and the same specialisms were often confused. She had to explain to the teachers on the course she was not me. She was using the teaching lab adjacent to the science office (converted broom cupboard). A window in the partition wall meant we could see in but I was to be out most of the day in schools. However, I did give the technicians a hand setting up computers borrowed from a number of schools. There were about twenty machines with monitors and hard drives and a few printers. It was as we switched on the last monitor that the lab's main fuse went.
On another occasion, the neighbouring authority at Kingston bought in my services as a computer control specialist to run a one day training programme on computer control for a number of their teachers.
Although I had little to do professionally with computers during those three years, I did keep up to date, still participating in BLUG and MAPE conferences and activities. One thing I did do, however, with BLUG was to look at floor turtles. When Seymour Pappert had first devised Logo, computers didn't have monitor screens. To enable children to use computers they had to have something tangible they could see. This was a robot, connected to the computer with a long wire, that drew a line as it followed the programmers' instructions. Valiant Technology made a popular turtle but they introduced a self-contained programmable toy, large and round, heavy (using two large, expensive, 6-volt batteries) and fragile. When we looked at it as a BLUG committee, the first thing we did was redesign the keypad by which programs were entered, by suggesting the arrow key to make it turn left should be on the left and that to make it turn right should be on the right.
A small company called Swallow Systems was run by someone I was to get quite friendly with. He and his wife employed two other staff. They produced a different floor turtle called “Pip”, named after their pet dog. It was about the size and weight of a house brick. It also used a small, sealed, lead-acid rechargeable battery so its running expenses were low. It was also robust, better suited to primary classrooms where it wouldn't get damaged if it fell off a desk or someone stood on it. I bought a couple for the science advisory centre and supported schools who decided to purchase their own. I also discussed to some length with its manufacturer possibilities of producing a control device with simple input sensors for control work. He was to follow up these ideas and present them a couple of years later.
When my contract ran out, I left Croydon. They didn't believe I was leaving as they had secured an extension of the funding for a further year. But I didn't want to stay in Croydon and, if I was to remain as an advisor, I wanted it to be recognised as such in my salary and be paid on the advisor's scale or at least as a headteacher, rather than the teacher's scale I was on. (Ironically, unable to find anyone of the right calibre to fill my shoes, the job did eventually have to be re-advertised on a headteacher's salary, but that was after I'd left.)
I moved to Hampshire without a job to go to, apart from a temporary contract teaching infants, but attending many interviews for deputy headships until I gained the place at the largest Middle School in the county.
I did do some computer work with the infants in my temporary post but could not progress as I would have liked with top juniors. It was whilst I was teaching there that I was approached by Head Masters' Conference to be keynote speaker at their local conference in Sussex. It would mean a Friday off school but they were prepared to pay for a supply teacher to cover for me. However, the head teacher was not going to release me and I lost all contact with HMC.
When I got my last teaching position, the chair of governors worked for IBM. He was keen for me to trial a hypertext program with the children but when I looked at it, I found it not very intuitive and that we could do better with some of the Logo programs I had developed. The school only had one BBC computer between two classes at the time. I was able to work with numerous children at different times introducing Logo. We then managed to purchase some discounted “portable” computers with monochrome screens but with IBM DOS operating system on which I could run a very good version of Logo.
I remember being on the games field one afternoon when some excited children ran to me to tell me about their Logo creation on a BBC computer. Unfortunately it was a screen picture made in part using direct commands rather than procedures and, with no printer attached to the computer, there was no way with Logotron Logo to save the work. That prompted me to produce “Notepad Logo”. It was a small Logo-written program that was automatically loaded into the computer on startup that utilised the function keys of the computer like a cassette recorder to enable recording and playback of direct commands (like a “dribble file”) and included a screen printing utility amongst its features. This extension became quite popular. The simple listing was printed in one or two education and computer magazines at the time.
The National Curriculum had just been introduced and my headteacher, who was determined to suppress me, insisted we developed our curriculum to meet attainment targets (rather than the easier programmes of study the department for education suggested we used.) Any free experimentation problem solving I might have felt beneficial to the children was immediately stamped upon. To continue, I had to set up an after-school computer club. I did, however, produce a “computer curriculum” of the different strands of computing from the National Curriculum using programs we had, or I had provided, with a built in progression to them. Again, this document was well received by educational computing magazines though dismissed by my head.
I was still writing for education magazines. I produced a regular monthly column on Logo for one of the Scholastic imprints and wrote a chapter on Logo for a teacher handbook they produced.
At this time, I received an invitation from NATO to participate in an advanced research workshop in Liège on introducing computer control in the elementary school. My head, surprisingly, was very supportive of my taking a week off to participate, but it was probably the prestige attached to the involvement.
It had been organised by a Belgian woman professor, whose acquaintance I had made on previous conferences, notably in Athens where I'd paid a considerable sum to attend and was envious of the other delegates who came from Universities whose attendance was paid from their research funds. (The siting of that conference had been so that we could have some influence on the Greek education service whose representatives attended.)
At Liège, I was one of three invited from UK amongst the 14 delegates from other NATO countries, the others being an adviser from Gloucester whom I had worked with before, and our BLUG chairman. Pip's creator was also there, though as a commercial operator he had had to pay for himself. He had produced sensors that could be simply added to Pip to enable the floor robot to take appropriate actions if it hit an object for example. He also had a light sensor that could enable Pip to follow a line drawn by thick black felt pen on a sheet of white paper.
I presented my paper on the difficulties of introducing control technology to teachers with no real conclusion as I hadn't discovered the best way to motivate teachers within my own establishment. (Without the absolute backing of the headteacher, I'd always be onto a loser.)
I always felt a bit of an outsider with this sort of presentation. Other presentations showcased experiments in learning whereby two small groups of 3 or 4 children had been isolated and observed closely conducting one simple task with and without some important data (for example). They had never had a whole class to contend with at the same time demanding attention.
It was at Liège that I met up with another commercial presenter from Lego who showed how their ideas were progressing into programmable bricks and microworlds. He said he'd be happy to welcome me at Legoland, Denmark, and show me around. (I was interested in the then proposed Legoland at Windsor, knowing they would want educational advisers.) But he didn't volunteer a plane ticket.
Also at Liège we were introduced to “Projét Pangea”. Using control Logo on IBM machines connected via the newly developing internet, schools from all over Europe were being invited to produce working models of technological solutions to environmental concerns with a communication aspect to it, with schools emailing each other and, eventually, being able to control each other's machines remotely.
We would only be able participate in a limited way, having BBC computers and no internet connection, but I was determined to use this as an impetus to see what we could do.
The papers we presented at Liège were compiled into a booklet which was published and sent to participating countries' education ministers.
Back in school, the computer club I ran had been called “SALAD club”: the acronym standing for “Science And Logo And Design”, putting Logo in the centre whilst embracing the science concepts and experimentation required and the technology we were using.
Our most successful project had been Morse communication between machines. Originally we intended one computer should be able to flash Morse code of a message, typed on its keypad, which another computer could see and translate and print on screen. Unfortunately, ambient light levels made this extremely difficult and eventually we had to opt for a hardwire twisted two core bell flex to connect the two machines' control interfaces. But it worked!
Following my return from Liège, I renamed the club, “Club SALADE” (Science Avec Logo Avec Dessin-technologique Environmentale) to reflect the international aspect incorporating the foreign languages element and the environmental concern.
The children came up with a brilliant project and designs for the model. There had been a couple of water scares in the news at that time where the purity of some drinking water had been compromised. The children designed a system that would use sensors to test the quality of output water and either permit it to continue into the mains or re-filter it. However, although they made various parts of it including a fantastic two-way motorised valve, other school time pressures precluded it reaching any conclusion.
At about this time, the National Curriculum was undergoing its first review. The chairman and treasurer of BLUG and I, had an audience with someone from the Department for Education to discuss the content of the IT curriculum. Although the importance of the control strand of computer education was acknowledged, it was omitted from the revised curriculum as it would be too expensive to train teachers to implement it and, being heavily Logo oriented could be seen as giving Logotron an unfair handout, since the majority of schools were using BBC computers.
The other significant computer usage I inaugurated at my last school was Newspaper day.
In 1990, the whole of the top year had one day to create, print and sell a newspaper. This followed visits to the local newspaper offices.
The tools available were the computers, printers, typewriters, still video camera (the earliest digital camera), television and teletext and a digitiser to convert TV and video pictures into computer acceptable format, photocopier and the school fax that we could receive weather forecast information on. I also took in at least two copies of every national and local paper available that morning.
It was a frantic but rewarding day, only let down by the photocopier breaking down defeating the final production run.
Newspaper day continued in future years run by different teachers and became newspaper week, which I feel loses some of the impact of getting current events recorded by a deadline. Still, I suppose magazines have deadlines too.
That was to be my last real involvement with computers in school. The head had increased the pressure on me had given me a year 3 class and only permitted me to do what he wanted. My health deteriorated, which led to my early retirement a few years later.
Postscript:
In January 2007, I revisited the BETT exhibition, twelve years since I'd last been. How depressing! Expensive, fancy machines and software were providing “blackboard alternatives”: white boards that could photocopy themselves onto pupil handouts, pupil attendance tracking systems, software to track pupils' attainment targets... It seems schools are to be approached like prisons where pupils will be provided with second-hand information. It looks like the new technology has been adapted to propagate bad educational practice: teaching facts. Where are the problem solving and imagination stretching approaches by which children can learn to discover for themselves, that could easily have been provided by these machines?
My worry used to be the curriculum would be dictated by clever software designers. Instead it is dictated by bureaucrats in Whitehall and hardware manufacturers, removing the child from the centre of the educational experience; not a “drawing out” but a “cramming in” approach. No innovative exploration will be possible until students have left school and by then it will be too late. Some may flourish in universities but how will they have managed to retain their uninhibited, childlike, awe and wonder that doesn't see things as being impossible because no one's done them before?