Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

To satisfy myself that I don't know any of the current teaching staff, I had a scroll through the list.

I was astonished to see that there is only one member of staff for Computer Studies.

There is an increasing need for the professions to have computer skills. It is impossible to practice law without an increasing level of ability.

A bit worrying that the school. Isn't up with the times.

I’m astounded that I recognise 14 names on the staff list given I left more than 20 years ago.

Not that surprising Dazed as a normal working life lasts at least 35 years.

Modern teaching embeds IT in almost every subject, so the core IT skills will be being taught within every lesson by all teachers, and most likely most prep will be being done on-screen, submitted electronically to the teacher, marked on-screen, and returned to students via their online account.
Any dedicated IT teaching will likely be for a specific IT GCSE or similar I’d expect - hence only one teacher?

Having said that, the teaching of actual computer programming and the purer IT technical skills (ie how it works, how to write the code, rather than just using other people’s software) is often lacking - almost all kids are “digital natives” these days, having had devices from an early age, so are fairly proficient IT users - but very few have the opportunity to learn coding, and the true technical creativity and excitement of that.

Not sure what CH teaches in that arena today....

Julian, I can understand that a lot of kids are self taught as indeed am I. But sometimes I wish that there was someone who would teach me not just how to do things properly but short cuts.

In the crown court about 99% of the case papers are delivered through the cloud. It is embarrassing to watch as some struggle even to switch the laptop on.

dsmg wrote: ↑Mon Jul 23, 2018 7:25 am Not that surprising Dazed as a normal working life lasts at least 35 years.

As a teenager I saw all teachers as being ancient and assumed they had retired years ago. In reality, those still teaching would likely have been younger than I am now when they taught me.

By heck, when I were a lad doing Maths A level with Ivor McConnell, there was an arrangement with Imperial College who allowed us computer time. We could write programs in something called Fortran 4 and put them onto punchcards using a small bodkin to push out perforated chads. The cards would go off in the post and if you were really lucky the following Wednesday you'd get your cards back along with a 100 yards of green listing paper.

I knew then it would never catch on.

That sounds like playing postal chess, of which my dad was an avid player. Make a move, write it on a postcard, post it to your opponent, who played the move, and responded in kind. LOTS of thinking time - not sure how much that helped, particularly in the end-game when you were getting soundly thrashed, and the pain was so long and drawn out!

Jim Rayner wrote: ↑Mon Jul 23, 2018 9:43 am By heck, when I were a lad doing Maths A level with Ivor McConnell, there was an arrangement with Imperial College who allowed us computer time. We could write programs in something called Fortran 4 and put them onto punchcards using a small bodkin to push out perforated chads. The cards would go off in the post and if you were really lucky the following Wednesday you'd get your cards back along with a 100 yards of green listing paper.

I knew then it would never catch on.

I was more likely to get back a couple of inches of paper that said “SYNTAX ERROR LINE 1: PROGRAM TERMINATED”

LongGone wrote: ↑Mon Jul 23, 2018 10:20 am

Jim Rayner wrote: ↑Mon Jul 23, 2018 9:43 am By heck, when I were a lad doing Maths A level with Ivor McConnell, there was an arrangement with Imperial College who allowed us computer time. We could write programs in something called Fortran 4 and put them onto punchcards using a small bodkin to push out perforated chads. The cards would go off in the post and if you were really lucky the following Wednesday you'd get your cards back along with a 100 yards of green listing paper.

I knew then it would never catch on.

I was more likely to get back a couple of inches of paper that said “SYNTAX ERROR LINE 1: PROGRAM TERMINATED”

Is that the analogue precursor to turning it off and on again?

Jim Rayner wrote: ↑Mon Jul 23, 2018 9:43 am By heck, when I were a lad doing Maths A level with Ivor McConnell, there was an arrangement with Imperial College who allowed us computer time. We could write programs in something called Fortran 4 and put them onto punchcards using a small bodkin to push out perforated chads. The cards would go off in the post and if you were really lucky the following Wednesday you'd get your cards back along with a 100 yards of green listing paper.

I knew then it would never catch on.

At Nottingham University we wrote in Egdon Algol, I think. Again cards and reams of paper.
I remember going to a computer exhibition in Olympia in the '60's, when the rage was accounting information on a magnetic strip down the side of the card. A very large card onto which was typed the information.
One of our managers was a bit sceptical, claimed his staff were liable to do things wrong, and asked what would happen if the card were inserted upside down, and was told that "Nothing".
He asked for a demonstration and "Nothing" was not the correct answer.
Confusion for the salesman and open mirth from us.

We used Fortran at Oxford, it wasn’t part of the regular Maths degree but I did a couple of courses in it. We wrote our programs, took them to the computer building, where we handed them in, always in Dr Smith’s name. The computer wasn’t for mere undergraduates. The following day, we went to collect them, still in the name of Dr Smith, almost always given back with a comment to the effect that Dr Smith always made very basic errors!

All this computer talk. No 'puters in my time at school. No calculators either.

I'm trying to discover what the 'cloud' is all about these days. No good apparently, until it rains though or so I'm told.

I'm going to dust my trusty abacus off and see if it's worth anything on 'Floggit' !.

The Cloud = "someone else's computer". No more complex than that really!

Think I'll join 'The Whirlwind' then.

I've now been looking closely into 'The Cloud'. Still no bl00dy rain.