BASIC Programs for Teaching - a course on program writing

A Practical course of 11 Monday Evening Sessions from 6 - 8pm, 14th January - 24th March 1980 offered by the Department of Mathematical Sciences and Computing at the Polytechnic of the South Bank

When	Jan 14, 1980 to Mar 24, 1980
Where	London

This course led by Morfydd Edwards and Susan Eisenbach introduced me to the evaluation outcomes of the National Development Programme in Computer Assisted Learning (NDPCAL). Although that project had been at higher education level, the evaluation findings proposed four categories of computer use which might support learning: instructional, revelatory, conjectural and emancipatory. This offered me an early practical analysis to inform my own designs.

This flyer summarises the course:

"This course is intended for teachers who already have some knowledge of programming in BASIC.

Guidance will be given in producing computer-based teaching material in the participant's own subject area, e.g. Business Studies, Social Studies and Economics.

The design of interactive graphics programs will be a major feature of the course.

Computing systems employed will include: HP 2000F, Systime, 380Z, PDP11/40 and DEC10.

NOTE: If you are interested in teaching using microcomputers, but do not have the pre-requisite knowledge of BASIC, it may be possible for the Polytechnic to offer again an Introductory Course in BASIC Programming in the Summer Term."

The programme of sessions was:

Jan 14th	Demonstration of some CAL programs and overview
Jan 21st	The specification and design of a CAL package I
Jan 20th	The specification and design of a CAL package II
Feb 4th	The student-machine interface
Feb 11th	Designing the control structure of a CAL program
Feb 18th	Coding techniques aimed at writing consistent, rugged, understandable and adaptable programs
Feb 25th	Computer graphics programming
March 3rd	Interactive computer graphics
March 10th	The use of CAL packages and the need for teacher and student guides
March 17th	Documentation
March 24th	Student seminars

My notes on publications I might read include:

'Introduction to Educational Computing', Rushby, Groom H 1979

'CAL in Science and Maths', Beech

'CAL News', Council for Educational Technology

'Computer Education'

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