Thanks Kent, now I dont feel so bad about having cut my teeth with punched cards on a PDP11 with Fortran and Pascal and on a cassette tape with Apple Basic and some machine code on my Apple ][e at home. <br><br>I have a year 9 typing teacher to thank for teaching me how to touch-type (two periods a week for 6 months). As the only boy in the class, I was relegated to ye olde manual typewriter at the front of the room. Now I can talk and look around
whilst I am typing in a classroom and not glance at the screen or keyboard. Very handy. :-)<br><br>Regards Roland<br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 18/09/2007, <b class="gmail_sendername">Kent Beveridge</b> <<a href="mailto:kbeveridge@stbc.vic.edu.au">
kbeveridge@stbc.vic.edu.au</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">Having just read about Kevork's 'how I got started', its like a trip down memory lane for me. I cut my teeth in this business on a good ol' PDP11's, VAX/VMS and Data General AOS/VS systems - all of the 'super mini' class. My first computer experience was the CYBER at RMIT with punched cards in 1982...boy, what a shock if you dropped the punched cards going to the computer centre to compile your job! Graveyard shifts, Winchester drives and lots of noisy impact printers going for it!
<br>Seems my background is not entirely dissimilar to Kevork!<br>This is an intrigueing thread and, I feel, can indicate perhaps how some of us are attempting to involve our students in this industry.<br><br><br>Kent Beveridge,
<br>I.T. co-ordinator<br>St. Brigids Catholic Sec. College<br>Horsham<br>email.. <a href="mailto:kbeveridge@stbc.vic.edu.au">kbeveridge@stbc.vic.edu.au</a><br><br>|<3|\|7 b3\/3r1D93 ? ;-)<br><br>Wishes and Eggs, one you make and one you break! A bit like promises.....
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<br><br>________________________________<br><br>From: <a href="mailto:yr7-10it-bounces@edulists.com.au">yr7-10it-bounces@edulists.com.au</a> on behalf of Kevork Krozian<br>Sent: Tue 9/18/2007 7:58 AM<br>To: Year 7 - 10 Information Technology Teachers' Mailing List
<br>Subject: Re: [Yr7-10it] Re : .. Programming for all levels<br><br><br><br>Hi Folks,<br><br> There were no computers at school and I picked up Computer Science in<br>1980 at Monash Uni with punch cards programming in Fortran. I continued with
<br>formal programming wiht the VAX mini system, majoring in Comp Sci having<br>covered C, Pascal, Assembly, Ada and a few other variations.<br> The course was more than programming. It was numerical computations, data<br>
structures and a lot of mathematical analysis such as depth of binary trees,<br>searching and sorting algorithms etc.<br> I had a few years in industry ( Oil rigs, CSIRO ) and when I did start<br>teaching standalones ( Apple II ) were the order of the day until a few
<br>years later when LANs made inroads. From there, scripting and other needs<br>could be satisfied with programming solutions of all kinds.<br> Some examples of in house custom built programming solutions implemented<br>
at my school include :<br><br> 1. A full roll marking system with swipe cards and readers in each room.<br> 2. A lateness module with a barcode reader for library cards.<br> 3. Online subject selections for students
<br> 4. Resource bookings on line ( rooms, hardware, etc )<br> 5. Web based Password changing modules for teachers ( a teacher anywhere<br>can change any student's password(s) anywhere )<br> 6. Internet traffic and surfing historiy monitoring
<br> 7. LDAP authentication scripts to allow access to resources<br> ... and many more<br><br> Programming is a means to an end and not an end in itself. Solutions are<br>demonstrated to students for inspiration/motivation.
<br><br> So now, the idea is here is a problem, what is the best way to solve it ?<br>Should we use a web based solution ? The answer is almost always yes.<br> Should we use PHP , VBScript or something else ?<br> Can we use existing databases to access data rather than produce a new
<br>database ? Eg. Can we extract timetabling data from the SQL server to use<br>for room bookings rather than importing these to a new database ? Almost<br>always YES.<br> We are now working on a Moodle/Intranet combination individualised for each
<br>teacher and student to allow logging on to access personal timetable, class<br>content as well as attendance, work due, and reporting. We might call it our<br>ultranet ..... :)))<br><br>Take Care<br>Kevork Krozian<br>
Edulists Creator and Administrator<br><a href="http://www.edulists.com.au">www.edulists.com.au</a><br><a href="mailto:kevork@edulists.com.au">kevork@edulists.com.au</a><br><br>----- Original Message -----<br>From: "Tony Forster" <
<a href="mailto:forster@ozonline.com.au">forster@ozonline.com.au</a>><br>To: "Year 7 - 10 Information Technology Teachers' Mailing List"<br><<a href="mailto:yr7-10it@edulists.com.au">yr7-10it@edulists.com.au
</a>><br>Sent: Monday, September 17, 2007 11:29 PM<br>Subject: Re: [Yr7-10it] Re : .. Programming for all levels<br><br><br>>> Anyway<br>>> How did you all learn programming?<br>><br>> Fortran, mainframe, punched card with paperclip, undergraduate 1972
<br>> Data General Nova assembler, 8k core memory, postgraduate, paper tape,<br>> self taught 1975<br>> Varicomposer, word processor for printing industry, 8"floppy, self taught<br>> assembler 1980<br>> Fortran, PC, research project, 1986, self taught
<br>> MS Quick C, self taught, hobby, 1990<br>> Gamemaker, 2002, self taught, saw educational potential :-)<br>><br>><br>><br>><br>> _______________________________________________<br>> <a href="http://www.edulists.com.au">
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