In the classroom

Press, 28 November 1979, Page 17

In the classroom

A cliff may take thousands of years to erode. But this can now be compressed into minutes by computer simulation in the classroom. This is one of the examples given in what is probably New Zealand’s first guide to the use of computers in schools. It is a collection of papers published by the Canterbury branch of the Geographical Society under the title, “Geography, Simulation, and the Computer in Schools.” Another example is the game of Sisun, which simulates the growth of population and industry on a small island, and is used by University of Canterbury students. A game simulates British farming, students making farmer decisions while the computer acts as the Government. The editor of the papers is Dr P. C. Forer, of the geography department at the University of Canterbury. The emphasis is on geography, but the range is much wider, and the booklet has relevance to all school subjects. Computer education is growing rapidly aboard, even in kindergartens. Its benefits and the plummeting costs of computer hardware bring small computers within the range of ever more schools, and soon, parents. Dr Forer, a young man, first used computers during research at Oxford and at Bristol University, It left him an enthusiast, | and he has been or; of those developing educational uses of the tech- • nology in geography since the department at Ham got a Wang 2200 system. •j He sees tremendous potential for computers in teaching social studies in secondary schools.

“You can teach something you couldn’t teach before, for example, simulation,” he says. (The cliff erosion is an example.) Not all the possibilities of the computer arouse such enthusiasm in him. He is less convinced of the value of what he describes as question-and-answer technique. This is when the computer terminal is used merely to guide the pupil through a structured set of questions to test and improve his knowledge. “But the computer does enable you to do a lot of inquiry-related teaching: the, ‘What happens if .. .?’ type of teaching,” says Dr Forer. Computers should not scare teachers: they do not have to be trained programmers. They can get programmes with supporting teaching aids, and to set up the computer they just have to feed in the supplied punched tape.

It is very useful to be able to adapt a game, say, to local conditions, but Dr Forer says there is usually a mathematics teacher on a school staff with a bent for programming who would have little trouble learning to do this.

“Someone with a fresh mind, coming to a computer, will pick up its use fairly quickly.” The Canterbury geography department has a grant from Mobil that will meet half the cost of developing programmes simulating urban growth and river catchments in colour. When the rest of the finance is obtained the programmes will probably join others in the “exchange” at the geography resource centre of the Christchurch Teachers’ College, which already has about 20 programmes available to schools. Geographers seem to be

tn the fore in developing computer-based learning for schools after an early monopoly by mathematicians. The New Zealand Geographical Society has a working group on the subject and has organised conferences; one will be held in Christchurch in March and April. Dr Forer sees the Computer Revolution’s spread to education as imminent and inevitable. He cites the price (“mini” computers have fallen in price by about half in three years); the burgeoning demand for personal computers in America, which also seem to suit New Zealand school requirements; the simplification of languages: and the fact that peripherals — line printers. plotters, display screens — are becoming better and cheaper. The booklet is an ideal introduction to school use of the computer, dealing with the machines, their use, the languages and prices (which fell during publication). It costs $2 and is available from the Geographical Society, C/the Geography Department, University of Canterbury, Private Bag, Christchurch.