The history of computers
in English schools

omputers have been used in schools since the mid 1980s. It began with a few pioneers using early machines such as the Apricot and the Commodore PET. But then the Department of Trade and Industry stepped in and made a half price offer.

The ball had begun to roll. At that time, schools didn't buy PCs for two reasons - firstly, the DTI only supported three UK manufacturers and secondly, PCs did not have graphics or sound capabilities at that time so they weren't the best choice for children. They may have been fine for word processing and spreadsheets as used in industry but children needed something more suitable to their needs.

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omputers first appeared in schools in about 1984 when the government offered to pay half the cost of initial equipment as a pump priming exercise. Primary schools could buy one computer and only have to pay half of the cost; secondary schools had to raise the whole price but received two machines.

There was a choice - Acorn's BBC model B, RM's 380Z and the Sinclair Spectrum were all available under the scheme. There were two reasons for these choices. Firstly, and perhaps most importantly at the time, they were all British made. But secondly, they all had good graphics and sound (for the time) - eight colours and a range of sounds and white noise. It doesn't sound much but it allowed for an amazing amount of animation and sound or musical feedback.

Local Education Authorities could choose their preferred machine and the stage was set for the next ten years. There were the days before schools managed their own budgets and the LEAs did all central purchasing and decision making.

My authority, Cambridgeshire, decided on BBC machines since they were made by Acorn who were based in Cambridge. For a similar reason, Oxfordshire chose RM. A few counties chose the Sinclair machine because it was cheaper so you got more for your money but the rest went with Acorn or RM. The Sinclair counties fairly quickly moved over to one of the other brands because the Spectrum, although a superb machine for its day and excellent for home use, really wasn't up to the challenge of busy classrooms.

At that time computers didn't have external speakers but they did have internal ones which made a variety of simple sounds plus white noise. It's amazing how much entertainment and involvement could be created with such simple effects and some excellent music programs were actually written for them.

Of course they had no mouse so programs were driven by menu choices made using the keyboard. However, they could all display remarkably good graphics in eight colours (two of which were black and white!) and so allowed for a very visual approach which was ideal for young children

In contrast, PCs usually had monochrome screens (often green and black), no sound and no graphics other than the IBM set of lines which allowed forms to be designed on screen. This was ideal for business use but not at all the best choice for children. What they needed were materials that helped them learn, not run an accounts department.

Software:
Initially the computers came with a tape recorder and several boxes of cassette tapes. This approach, although it seemed good at the time, did education a great disservice. It led people to believe a number of falsehoods:

• that computers were fiddly, awkward things that were very hard to get going
• that software was free or very cheap
• that software only did simple things like rote learning activities which could be better done at a fraction of the cost using pencils, paper and books

Even though disc drives appeared very soon afterwards, it was at least a year or more before the idea of using computers as open ended tools in other curriculum work became a reality and several years before this became embedded in our thinking. 

Curriculum use:
As early as 1985 I attended a lecture entitled 'Learning Environments of the Future' in which the speaker showed Logo. He described how it was completely content free and gave children an environment in which they could experiment with mathematical ideas and achieve success. It was an eye opener and showed that the power of IT lay in its use as a creative tool and not as a teaching machine. 

The breakthrough came with word processing. Many people complained, asking why on earth we should use a computer for writing, but the benefits quickly became established although sharing printers between classes went on for a long time. It's difficult to imagine a time when the idea of using a computer for writing seemed alien but that's how it was.

It was the National Curriculum which really moved IT forward with its descriptions of the use of generic software across five 'strands' of activity. This is described fully in these pages.

Hardware:
In about 1986 RM introduced the Nimbus computer. I'm sure that J.K. Rowling was educated in an RM authority because the Nimbus 2000 broomstick that Harry Potter uses simply has to be a reflection of ht excitement of that time. The Nimbus was based on the Intel 80186 processor and it had a mouse and a windows environment. It was an excellent machine and many Acorn counties (notably the Inner London Authorities) switched to RM and bought these machines. In 1987 Acorn launched the Archimedes computer which had 256 colours, fine graphics and also had a windows, icons, mouse and pointer (WIMP) operating system, so the exodus halted. 

The Archimedes computer was followed by the A3000 which was quickly adopted by primary schools. With the '286' generation of processors RM decided to go 'industry standard' whilst Acorn remained with its proprietary operating system. The Sinclair computer had become a strong home machine but was superseded by other manufacturers who produced games consoles. 

Although both Sinclair and Acorn are both long gone, there was one other platform in existence then and, along with RM, it survives to this day. Apple computers had adopted the windows and mouse environment before even Acorn and it was by far the easiest to use. But being American it wasn't available for UK schools although later a number of Scottish authorities did adopt it.

Finally, the ubiquitous PC came to dominate the market due to three factors. Firstly, the technology improved to the point where PCs began to come as standard with graphics and sound capabilities. Secondly, Microsoft eventually managed to get a version of windows working (version 3 was the first one that actually worked, quickly superseded by 3.1 and later by Windows 95). And lastly, devolution of funding to schools meant that parent power finally forced schools to but 'industry standard' computers which they were convince were best for their child. I was so often asked why we didn't teach the children DOS "because that's what they'll need when they leave school". It was endlessly impossible to to explain that what children needed was software suited to their educational needs, not suited to the needs if business, and at t he time the best choice was Acorn, RM or Apple.

The future:
The platform war raged through the 1990s is over. The business market was always dominated by PCs but their penetration in education was weak and they were the last platform to adopt a windows environment. The Pentium generation of processors finally allowed them to come of age and now the ubiquitous PC dominates most ICT provision in UK schools. All three platforms developed into stunning machines, operating at high speeds and capable of high definition colours graphics, CD-quality digital sound and WYSYWIG (what you see is what you get) desktop publishing. But in the late 1990s Acorn threw in the towel and left the PC to it. Despite this, Apple remains in strong contention worldwide and certainly isn't dead yet. In fact, many argue that since the introduction of iPods, iTunes and the iPhone, the future may yet be brighter for Apple than for Microsoft.

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