WHAT ARE THE REAL PROBLEMS INVOLVED IN GETTING COMPUTERS INTO THE HIGHSCHOOL?Author(s): JAMES SAUNDERSSource: The Mathematics Teacher, Vol. 71, No. 5, Computers and Calculators (MAY 1978), pp.443-447Published by: National Council of Teachers of MathematicsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27961295 .

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WHAT ARE THE REAL PROBLEMS INVOLVED IN GETTING COMPUTERS INTO THE HIGH SCHOOL?

By JAMES SAUNDERS

Upper St. Clair High School

Upper St. Clair, PA 15241

The purpose of this paper is to consider some of the problems in getting a computer into a high school. The ideas are based on the experiences of teachers in a suburban

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, school district, Upper St. Clair. Any consideration of the

problems involved in getting computers into the high school will necessarily focus on the cost involved. Teachers, administra tors, school directors, and concerned stu dents will readily agree that the main prob lem is money. There are, however, other factors involved in whether or not a school obtains a computer that may be just as

significant as cost. Some of these factors will be considered as we look at the charac

teristics, procedures, and policies at Upper St. Clair that led to the initial involvement, eventual purchase, and continual expan sion of a computer system up to the pres ent. After ten years of experience with the

computer in education, the Upper St. Clair teachers can look back and consider how

they would do it differently if they could start all over again. Perhaps this reflection on the past can give some guidelines to teachers planning their first experience with the computer.

How did Upper St. Clair first get started?

Upper St. Clair High School was in troduced to the computer revolution in 1967 when three teachers participated in an IBM summer workshop. In 1967 educa tional writers like Don Bushnell were pre dicting wonderful things for educational

users of the computer. Upper St. Clair

High School, built in 1961, was still new and growing. Administrators and teachers were considering new learning opportuni ties for the students. It was natural, then, to

expect that Upper St. Clair would try the

computer. At first, there were two terminals, which

could be linked (one at a time) through a

telephone module to the large General Electric computer in Cleveland, Ohio. Al

though some science teachers were involved in the initial experiment, their interest soon

diminished, and the computer operation

It has been difficult getting all teachers involved.

fell by default to the mathematics depart ment. The mathematics teachers, however, were not exactly overwhelmed with all this newfound computer power. Teachers are trained to dispense knowledge?to know

something and pass it on to the fertile mind of the student. Here was this chattering mechanical box that they knew so little about! There is a powerful human phenom enon at work when one does not quite un derstand something. For teachers, it is the

tendency to ignore the frustrating new ideas and retreat to more secure ground. "But I

just don't have time for computer-related learning in my course!" is a good example of this phenomenon at work.

The Upper St. Clair computer program was sustained in the early days in part by

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the concern of the department chairman, who tried to have all mathematics teachers use the computer in some way. He encour

aged the mathematics teachers to use the

computer by providing many hours of indi vidual help. The chairman always discussed the computer operation during department meetings. He enthusiastically supported the

development of in-service programs. As a

result, in-service programs were developed and approved for three consecutive sum mers. The chairman made the computer a focal point of the high school mathematics

program.

The computer efforts were also aided in the early days by the great amount of stu dent interest. It was apparent early that kids really do love computers. A modular

Students love the computer.

schedule was in effect whereby students could choose certain alternatives during their nonclass time. The computer room,

actually a converted chemistry storeroom, became a popular place for students. Thus, it was one teacher and a whole lot of stu dent interest and excitement that convinced the administration to keep the computer at

Upper St. Clair.

How much does the computer cost?.

On examining the Appendix one can see that the cost analysis begins with 1971 ?

1972. Between 1967 and 1971, Upper St. Clair rented a time-sharing system from various companies. The cost ranged from $7000 to $10 000 each year for essentially a one-terminal system. There was not much chance for a truly interactive use with only one terminal on-line. In this early period, no one teacher was designated as the com

puter science teacher. Whatever was done with the computer would be accomplished in addition to one's normal teaching duties.

Naturally, certain teachers with more inter est in the computer became associated with the computer center. There was a general understanding, however, that the computer

belonged to all, and therefore, all had the

responsibility to use it as best they could. A Digital Equipment Corporation

(DEC) PDP 8/E with five terminals was

purchased and installed in 1971. One fea ture of this system, which has been taken

advantage of as noted in the Appendix, is its ability to accept add-on components.

Although the hardware was purchased out

right at Upper St. Clair, a five-year amorti zation was used in the Appendix to give the most standard comparison. Note that fac tors used in determining the terminal rate

per hour are conservative ones. Through this procedure of original purchase plus add-on components, Upper St. Clair has the services of a fairly sophisticated com

puter for about the cost of one teacher. The

computer is not replacing a teacher; there is no comparison between what a teacher does and what a computer can do. How

ever, the cost of a computer can be built into a school budget with no more or less concern than what it costs to hire one more teacher.

Regardless of a school district's hesita tion about cost, it is a problem that can be overcome. The Upper St. Clair teachers have directly influenced the spending of school funds by convincing school authori ties that a computer in the high school is a

necessity. The record shows that additional

expenditures for new computer com

ponents and software are a direct result of teacher requests. If the teachers had not

supported the installation and maintenance of a computer, there would be little com

puter access for the Upper St. Clair stu dents today.

How is the computer used?

The hardware restrictions of the initial

minicomputer system caused the computer use at Upper St. Clair to be oriented to ward students writing programs. Com

puter-assisted instruction (CAI), with its

large memory requirements and long peri ods of individual terminal use, therefore,

passed them by. The main advantage to

having a minicomputer is that the com

puter is available full time.

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Writing programs to solve problems be came the principle use of the computer be cause of the memory limitation of the mini

computer. More and more people, apparently, are beginning to recognize that student control of the computer to solve

problems is one of the most interesting and effective modes of using the computer in education (Bell, 1974a, 1974b and Dwyer 1975). The students seem to enjoy this

problem-solving mode of computer use so much that the CAI movement is not missed. In addition, students and teachers have the opportunity to practice good thinking habits such as (1) step-by-step planning, (2) anticipating errors, and (3) solution checking.

As a teacher of mathematics, I feel that the computer provides a powerful tool for

helping kids learn about mathematics. When I design lessons I consider possible ways for using the computer to enhance students' understanding of mathematical

topics. The computer activity may be creat

ing a program, or it may be a simple execu tion and interaction with a stored program.

Not all such activities are successful ones, but to me, using the computer adds much more excitement and interest to the task of

learning and teaching than the usual text book and chalkboard.

An important aspect of the Upper St. Clair program was that the computer was

always accessible to students, sometimes without a teacher present. Students worked

The computing center is open to all students.

on programs they thought were interesting. The computer center was mainly a student

operation. Students helped each other and

they helped the teachers. Teachers and administrators bring many

different kinds of problems to the center for assistance. Many after-school hours are de voted to finding solutions to these problems with the computer's help. A program has been instituted at Upper St. Clair whereby

teachers can report students' grades using the i-score, which is possible when a com

puter does the work. Most nonmathematics teachers who visit

the computer room at Upper St. Clair shake their heads in awe of the whole thing and then ignore it. Understanding how to use the computer would be just too diffi cult. Anyway, that is the domain of the mathematics people. Teachers have the ten

dency to overcompartmentalize everything; this is mathematics, this is science, this is

English. As a result, very little use is made of the computer by other teachers at Upper St. Clair. It has been difficult getting all the mathematics teachers involved?a task still not completed. The small memory capacity is another factor that works against people

making an effort to get involved with the

computer. A teacher who gets an idea for

using the computer may have the false no tion that the computer can do anything.

When the high school computer people re

spond that this idea requires too much

memory or too much time in creating a

program, the potential user goes away thinking that the Upper St. Clair computer cannot be a real computer. It must be just a

toy! Thus people gather reinforcement for their natural desire to ignore the whole

thing. Even mathematics teachers lose in

terest, particularly if the computer breaks down just when a teacher decides to do

something with it.

How does one obtain money for computer expansion?

When you have something that you feel is worthwhile, you tell others about it. For

Upper St. Clair, this means that time is taken to write periodic reports explaining what they are doing. If money becomes

available, they hope their report will be

right on top. The first upgrading at Upper St. Clair occurred through a matching-fund federal title project. The administrator in

charge thought of the computer when

checking through project-title information because of the high school computer re

ports on file. If there had been no computer reports, an opportunity to purchase new

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equipment might have been missed. Of course, student excitement and word

of mouth are important factors in letting people know that good things are happen ing with the computer. At Upper St. Clair the computer is open to all students during their daily independent study mods

(twenty-five minutes each), when they are free to choose among various learning op portunities. One of these choices is the

Computer Resource Center. Thus at any time of the school day there will be mathe

matics students working on class assign

Cost restraints can be overcome.

ments alongside other students pursuing computer topics of their own choosing. The

computer students are of all ability levels, because the computer can be used in so

many different ways. Some students enjoy just watching programs run whereas others want to create their own programs. The real motivation for students is the com

puter. Along these lines, we have found that keeping people informed about the

computer operation serves as an important factor in generating new money for expan sion.

What would Upper St. Clair do differently today?

They would try to do the following:

1. Work harder at getting more in volvement from mathematics teachers.

a. Encourage team teaching of com

puter-oriented teachers with teach ers not using the computer.

b. Develop administrative support to

encourage teacher involvement.

c. Make available to each teacher spe cific curriculum materials for spe cific topics. (Good curriculum mate rials are available.)

d. Review and discuss pertinent re search studies at in-service meetings.

e. Assign teachers to monitor the com

puter room by themselves.

f. Have mathematics teachers teach a

computer literacy course on a rotat

ing basis.

g. Encourage professional self-devel

opment units about computers. 2. Make the purchase of a large-disk

memory device a top priority item.

3. Maintain close contact with local uni

versity personnel who deal with com

puters in education.

4. Conduct local research projects to in

vestigate "doubts."

5. Consider carefully, before purchase, minicomputers versus micro

computers. (A minicomputer is a small

computer; a microcomputer is also a small computer but uses relatively new

microprocessor technology.) 6. Purchase at least one computer graph

ics terminal.

7. Publish a computer center newsletter.

8. Offer a computer "literacy" course for all teachers.

9. Make arrangements to open the com

puter center to the community after school.

10. Consider computer access for middle and elementary schools.

11. With the support of the department chairman, develop computer units of

study to be included in each course of

study.

Summary

The experience at Upper St. Clair shows that the computer in education will not fade away as many other innovations have done. Although it is now ten years since

they started, there is no tendency to let up. If anything, there is a feeling that they are

just beginning. The key to getting comput ers into the high school, as far as Upper St. Clair is concerned, is to get people inter ested. When excited students and in novative teachers are willing to work a little

more, the other problems seems to dimin ish.

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APPENDIX

School Year

REAL-TIME COSTS FOR A MINICOMPUTER SYSTEM Cost/Hour

of

Computer Initial Cost per Maintenance Supplies Net Terminal

System,, Cost Yearb Month/Year (Paper, etc.) C?st/Yearc Used

1971- 1972 1972- 1973 1973- 1974

1974- 1975 1975- 1976 1976- 1977 1977- 1978 1978- 1979 1979- 1980 1980- 1981 1981- 1982

A A A

AB AB ABC ABC ABC ABC ABC ABC

$30,000

$22,000

$25,000

$6,000 6,000 6,000

6,000 + 4,400 6,000 + 4,400 4,400 + 5,000 4,400 + 5,000 4,400 + 5,000 5*000 5,000

(Warranty) $330/$3,960 330/3,960

550/^28 550/6,600 800/9,600 800/9,600 800/9,600 800/9,600 800/9,600 800/9,600

S 500 500 500

700 800

1,200 1,200 1,200 1,200 1,200 1,200

$ 6,500 10,460 10,460

17,028 17,800 20,200 20,200 20,200 15,800 15,800 10,800

$ .81 1.31 1.31

2.13 2.23 1.58 1.58 1.58 1.23 1.23 .84

a. A: DEC EDU20, PDP8/E, 8K CORE, 5 terminals multi-user, card reader, 32K DISK AB: DEC EDU25, PDP8/E, 24K CORE, 5 terminals multi-user, card reader, 32K DISK, DEC tape

ABC: EDUCOMP ?TOS, PDP8/E, 32K CORE, 8 terminals time-sharing, card reader, 1600 DISK, DEC tape (Each system upgrade is an add-on to the original system.)

b. As a basis for comparison consider "Initial Cost" amortized over five years. c. Net cost/year

= cost/year + maintenance + supplies.

d. 5 teletypes and 1 card reader prior to 76-77, add 2 DEC writers, 1 CRT in 76-77 hourly rate = NET + (# of terminals X 10 months X 20 days/month X 8 hours/day)

e. $382/month September-December, $550/month January-August

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bell, Frederick . "Computers in the Schools:

Catalysts for Learning." Curriculum Trends, De

cember, 1974a. -. "Why Is Computer-Related Learning So Suc

cessful?" Education Technology, 14 (December 1974b): 15-18.

Bushneil, Don D. "Applications of Computer Tech

nology to the Improvement of Learning." Per

spectives on the Computer Revolution, Zenon W.

Pylyshyn, ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1970.

CBMS Committee on Computer Education. Recom mendation Regarding Computers in High School Education. Washington, D.C.: Conference Board of the Mathematic?l Sciences, 1972.

Dwyer, T. "Some Thoughts on Computers and Great ness in Teaching." Topics in Instructional Computing 1 (January 1975).

Hunter, Beverly, Carol S. Kastner, Martin L. Rubin, and Robert J. Seidel. Learning Alternatives in U.S. Education: Where Student and Computer Meet. Eng lewood Cliffs* N.J.: Educational Technology Pub

lications, 1975.

Complete information concerning NCTM professional services is available from the

NCTM, 1906 Association Drive, Reston, VA 22091. ,

NCTM Membership Is a Really Big Package

May 1978 447

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