Description A look at the impact of new technology on OU teaching methods. The following are examined: video cassettes designed for tutorial use; microcomputers, including recent OU research to help disabled s
... tudents; CYCLOPS; Videodiscs.
1 00:00:00,000 00:00:01,000 Open Forum 83 (1983) FOUF059H
2 00:00:01,000 00:00:03,000 Wynne Brindle: Another device that’s made its appearance in recent years…
3 00:00:04,000 00:00:08,000 ..is the micro computer. The cheapest models are now available in the High Street…
4 00:00:08,000 00:00:13,000 ..for less than £100. To look at the impact of micro computers on the OU,
5 00:00:14,000 00:00:17,000 we first spoke to Darrell Ince and asked him about OU courses…
6 00:00:18,000 00:00:21,000 ..that are specifically designed with micro computers in mind.
7 00:00:22,000 00:00:25,000 Darrell Ince: Well this is HEKTOR. It’s a micro computer that’s…
8 00:00:25,000 00:00:29,000 ..being developed at The Open University for use on some of it’s courses.
9 00:00:30,000 00:00:34,000 TM222 is about the architecture of a digital computer and we…
10 00:00:35,000 00:00:39,000 ..use HEKTOR to get over concepts about the machine and about programming.
11 00:00:40,000 00:00:44,000 There’re also a pair of courses which were financed by the Department of Industry.
12 00:00:45,000 00:00:49,000 There’s PT501 which is really a course for managers, telling them…
13 00:00:50,000 00:00:56,000 ..what a micro computer is, what software is, how it can be used in their products etc.
14 00:00:57,000 00:01:03,000 And PT502 which is a course for engineers , the sort of thing they would do…
15 00:01:04,000 00:01:06,000 ..would be use a micro as part of a monitoring system which…
16 00:01:07,000 00:01:09,000 ..might monitor the temperature of a blast furnace.
17 00:01:11,000 00:01:14,000 Fourthly, there’ll be industrial applications of computers.
18 00:01:15,000 00:01:18,000 Now this is a proposed Masters course which has been financed by…
19 00:01:19,000 00:01:23,000 ..the Science and Engineering Research Council . And who this is intended for is…
20 00:01:24,000 00:01:28,000 ..engineers and technical managers who feel they’ve been slipping behind…
21 00:01:29,000 00:01:31,000 ..or there’s big gaps in their knowledge; they ’re seeing micro computers…
22 00:01:32,000 00:01:34,000 ..come into their work and they don’t know what to do with them.
23 00:01:35,000 00:01:40,000 And so a student on this course will use either HEKTOR…
24 00:01:41,000 00:01:44,000 ..or something very similar to do two types of computing.
25 00:01:45,000 00:01:51,000 You’ll either use the computer in a stand- alone way or he’d use the computer as…
26 00:01:52,000 00:01:56,000 ..a terminal using the phone link that he has in his home to do…
27 00:01:57,000 00:02:01,000 ..the sort of very big computing, the computing that requires lots of space…
28 00:02:02,000 00:02:05,000 ..and lots of power which a micro computer couldn’t really handle.
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