Institute gives lie to apathy excuse

Press, 21 April 1979, Page 24

Institute gives lie to apathy excuse

The Christchurch Technical Institute is doing its best to ensure that no-one can be comfortable in apathetic ignorance about computers. It runs a number of computer courses. At the most elementary level is an appreciation course of two hours a week for a term. This gives a background to the terminology, and concepts of electronicdata processing, and students are shown computer hardware. All other computer courses are in programming; operating is taught by employers. Three languages are taught: Basic, Cobol, and Fortran.

. The Basic course is in introductory, immediate, and advanced components, each of a term. Instruction is of two hours a week, but students also spend time at the computer, where they can play learning games after completing assignments. As in other programming courses, the teaching is ’’interactive.” “Interactive” means the student, writing or running his programme at the computer, is prompted by it when an error occurs. Immediate correction can then be made. The institute runs two part-time courses ' in Cobol, beginners’ and advanced. with attendance required for two hours a week. There is a similar course in Fortran. Another course is in microprocessing software for these increasingly popular devices. In the microprocessor software course, which covers a year with two hours of teaching a week, instruction is oriented towards the Motorola 6800 processor, but most of the methods and techniques covered are applicable to other micro-processors. But the top course is the one-vear, full time programming course. About 15 students are se-

lected by aptitude test for this and they sit technicians’ certificate and an institute examinations.

What does the aptitude comprise? There are mathematics and pattern-recog-nition components in the tests, but the major part is ability in English. Mr B. Frost, the head of the insitute’s department of applied sciences, says: “Unless people can think coherently, they won’t be able to put their thoughts into computer language.” Apart from their work at the insitute, most of the students work for firms in the August term holiday, and many return to these firms as employees at the year’s end as programmers.

Mr Frost says the size of the class is kept small partly because the number of its students approximates the demand for new programmers in Christchurch. The full time students are trained in both Basic, which is gaining increasing acceptance, and in Cobol, the main business language. Mr Frost, who is in charge of the computer courses, succeeded the present director of the institute, Mr John Hercus, as head of applied sciences. A mathematician, Mr Frost joined the Christchurch Technical College staff in 1956 and has been with the institute since it was established in 1965.

“Everyone is going to have some contact with computers.” he says, “and the institute is catering for this.” The institute uses three computers in its It has an ICL 7503 termiwhich gives it access to the big ICL 2980 at the Trentham computer centre, which as well has 20 Government departments and the Auckland Technical Institute on-line. Input is by card reader. Under standably. there is often a queue for work and there

is a 24-hour wait on some processing. All the Cobol work is on this computer, and the full time students spend much of their time working with it.

The second computer is a PDP 11/If), with a 64,000-byte capacity. It has an RTII operating system and multiuser Basic. It has two matrixpin printers and three visual display units. This is the computer at which the Basic students do their work. They are able to use it at set times for their own projects or to play the special learning games, and there are usually students awaiting turns at the V.D.U.’s throughout the working week and on Saturday mornings.

The third computer is a Radio Shack. It is a small portable computer, and is used mainly by tutors. They are encouraged to take it home to help with work. A second of these is on order for the institute’s machine tool engineering department. The institute - expects to make increasing use of computers, not only for programming, but in general teaching work.

First moves have been taken in secretarial studies, where a terminal to the PDP system is being used to familiarise officemachine students with V.D.U. updating of accounts and an elementary form of word processing. Already, overseas, special computers are being used for instruction in many courses. Mr Frost and his enthusiastic staff are looking forward to when these teaching aids will be in use in New Zealand. But in the meantime they are doing their best to meet the demand for local computer programmers and to give as much knowledge possible to the public.