Computer Managed Learning in Hertfordshire

Abstract

The Advisory Unit for Computer Based Education was set up by Hertfordshire to coordinate the development of computer education throughout its maintained schools and colleges. In 1973 a major project was established at the Unit to develop a computer managed mathematics scheme for eleven-and twelve-year-olds in twelve local schools. Brief introduction to educational computing in HertfordshireHertfordshire is one of the few British local authorities which escaped major reorganization and boundary changes in the local government reorganization of April 1974. It has remained a county ofjust under a million inhabitants served by a single education authority which administers 600 primary schools, over a hundred secondary schools, about a dozen colleges and a polytechnic. There is no university in Hertfordshire. It has invested in an educational computer service to serve the needs of locally maintained teaching establishments, a service which includes hardware, software and educational support and which has engendered a great spirit of collaboration amongst the participants. The educational support and liaison are the responsibility of the Advisory Unit for Computer Based Education.Historically, computer education within the authority can be traced back to 1963 when the Hatfield College of Technology (as it then was) installed an Elliott 803 computer to support the needs of its own Department of Mathematics. These facilities were at this time far-sightedly made available to surrounding schools and colleges. In 1970 (after four years of detailed planning) a major educational computing service was established at Hatfield Polytechnic in the form of a Digital Equipment Corporation System 10. Now some seventy schools use the system by batch or on-line.Strict resource control of the computing facilities at the Polytechnic is practised with the understanding that about two-thirds of the facilities will be used by the Polytechnic itself and the other third by the rest of the county. The County Computer Advisory Panel which contains teacher representatives advises on how this one-third of the resources should be distributed. How a school or college then uses its share of resources is largely an internal responsibility. Teaching about computersThe computer was used initially in teaching to demonstrate its uses and how it works, to students of eleven years and upwards. Such courses are still very much in evidence, and in some cases lead to examinations organized at a local or national level. To support these courses, it has been traditional for students to write their own programs, but the computer system is used more broadly than this. Program writing is mainly undertaken to illustrate the computer and how it works, rather than as an end in itself.