This report reviews four different computer systems that are available for educational use. Presented is a system overview, and the strengths and weaknesses of each of the following systems: PLATO, TERAK, Compucolor II, and PET. Each of these machines is included as a representative of a "class" of machines available to the educator.…

Described is the current state of computer science education in this country. The information explosion in science and the shift in our economy from the production of industrial goods to a greater emphasis on science and knowledge-based industries has created a discontinuity in the nature of jobs and our educational needs. Computers are not a…

A paper given at a conference on statistical computation discussed teaching statistics with computers. It concluded that computer-assisted instruction is most appropriately employed in the numerical demonstration of statistical concepts, and for statistical laboratory instruction. The student thus learns simultaneously about the use of computers…

An overview is provided of the Fourth Revolution, i.e., the revolution which is taking place in education as a result of the introduction of computers into the field. The growth of computing in education, especially in higher education, is traced, and some major National Science Foundation (NSF) programs are mentioned. Following this, a few of the…

Reports on a survey of universities in the United States which offer computer science graduate programs. Summarizes findings relating to the general attributes of responding universities, hardware and software resources, graduate student entry requirements, and courses of study. (TW)

Discusses a program in which research groups consisting of faculty, undergraduate students, and graduate students worked on projects in computer graphics, automatic-code generation, or computer-aided instruction. Cites several positive outcomes for students when research is made relevant to the technical subject studied. (RT)

This paper reports preliminary work in an ARC Linkage Project involving collaboration among James Cook University, Education Queensland, and Technology One (a Queensland based company). The project aims to identify and interpret factors associated with low female participation rates in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) professional…

The under-representation and poor retention of women in computing courses at Victoria University is a concern that has continued to defy all attempts to resolve it. Despite a range of initiatives created to encourage participation and improve retention of females in the courses, the percentage of female enrolments has declined significantly in…

Three different approaches to teaching introductory programming are reviewed: the incremental approach, the sub-language approach, and the mini-language approach. The paper analyzes all three approaches, providing a brief history of each and describing an example of a programming environment supporting this approach. In the incremental approach,…

In the hope that a general exchange of information on computer courses for humanists will be of help to persons contemplating or already teaching such, and in the hope of encouraging a continued growth in the universities offering these courses, article surveyed that field. (Author/RK)

This paper discusses five points related to developmental research on children learning to do Logo programming: (1) systematic developmental research documenting what children are learning as they learn to program is necessary; (2) Logo is cognitively complex beyond its early steps and difficult to learn without instructional guidance; (3) the…

Persistent conceptual bugs exist in how novices, from primary school to college age, program and understand programs. These bugs are not specific to a given programming language but appear to be language-independent. The three different classes of bugs are: (1) parallelism, the assumption that different lines in a program can be active at the same…

Designed for use by computer programming teachers, this booklet presents the concepts of structured programming and provides examples of how to implement this methodology, which provides a systematic way of organizing programs so that even large and complex programs are easier to understand and modify than unstructured programs. After a brief…

This pilot study tested the hypothesis that the logical thinking skills of middle-grades students are enhanced by teaching them computer programming using the BASIC programming language. A quasi-experimental design was used with 36 students randomly selected and assigned to one of two treatment groups: 18 students received no instruction in…