The Computer in Secondary Education
TWENTY New England secondary schools are linked by teletype to Dartmouth's time-sharing computer system this fall, in an experiment to discover how a large-scale computer facility can best be used as a broad aid to secondary education.
If the experiment is successful, the knowledge of operations and teaching techniques will be shared with other computation centers seeking to serve secondary schools in their regions.
A grant of $142,500 from the National Science Foundation is supporting the program. It enables the secondary schools to have teletype consoles connected to Dartmouth's Kiewit Computation Center by long-distance telephone lines. The link-up gives students quick and easy access to a multimillion-dollar General Electric 625 computer by simply completing a telephone call.
Through the time-sharing system, up to 200 callers are able to use the computer simultaneously with little apparent delay because of the computer's extremely high speed. At the same time, Dartmouth students and faculty members can be using the computer for their class work and research.
The students have been taught an easily understood computer language called BASIC which was developed by Dartmouth mathematicians.
Nine of the schools have been connected to the computer in the years since time-sharing was started at Dartmouth in May 1964. They are: Phillips Exeter Academy, St. Paul's School, Kent School, Kimball Union Academy, Mount Hermon School, Phillips Academy at Andover, Vermont Academy, Hanover High School, and Mascoma Valley Regional High School, West Canaan, N. H.
They were joined this fall, through the NSF grant, by Loomis School, Manchester (N. H.) Central High School, Keene (N. H.) High School, St. Johnsbury (Vt.) Academy, Lebanon (N. H.) High School, Hartford (Vt.) High School, Concord (N. H.) High School, Rutland (Vt.) High School, South Portland (Me.) High School, Cape Elizabeth (Me.) High School, and Timberlane High School, Plaistow, N. H.
Prof. Thomas E. Kurtz, director of the Kiewit Computation Center and of the NSF project, explained the secondary-school project this way: "We start from the premise that in the lifetime of today's students the use of computers will become as much a part of everyday life as the telephone or automobile. But few secondary schools, especially in nonmetropolitan areas, can afford their own expensive computer installations.
"Our experience with the secondary schools showed us that while students might know little about the computer it- self,they could develop a familiarity with computing technique that would allow them to use it in their everyday work.
"And once they experienced the practical application of computing, any uninformed apprehension they might have had would be dispelled; their judgments concerning it would be more rational, and they would be ready to pursue their education and careers with confidence and competence."
Hanover High School has established an extracurricular Computer Club, with several hundred student members. Some startlingly sophisticated programs have been carried out. At Mount Hermon School, more than 400 students were trained in the BASIC computer language on one teletype during one fall term.
But despite the general enthusiasm in the schools and the reports of innovative uses, Professor Kurtz continued, the results of the computer experiments in secondary education had never been examined.
"Our purpose in applying for the grant, then, was to permit developing, expanding, sharing, documenting, and publishing the results of this experience."
