Uncategorized

Technology Back in 1990. How Things Have Changed

Posted on Sep 27, 2011 in Site Stuff, Uncategorized | 0 comments

As students head back to university, and the ritual that is Fresher’s Week begins again, I’m reminded that it’s now 21 years since a rather nervous student made his way up to Birmingham University to start a degree in Biological Science. And it got me thinking about how the technology available to those students starting today is a whole world away.

So yes I’ve now reached the stage when I can make students feel like I did when my father in law talks about his days feeding punch cards into computers when he was a lad.

Nobody had a computer in their room. The only computers available to us were in the Biology building. Very basic terminals which we very rarely used. I can remember having one or two sessions in there for some kind of biological statistics module. I can also remember a friend showing how he could get access to a network in America – and I remember being concerned that it must be costing a fortune to do so – looking back I think it was some JANET system.

It wasn’t until we moved out of halls of residence and into a student house that I brought my Atari ST computer up with me and used that for word processing essays. My third year dissertation and final project were all produced on that Atari ST. My girlfriend (now Mrs Nic) brought over a hulking great 186 of her stepfathers and used that. Real cutting edge tech (I can remember playing Lemmings, Humans and Stunt Island on it though… quality games).

This was a year before the Internet as we know it began with the launch of the World Wide Web. No Facebook, email to keep in touch with friends and family. No Skype. Twitter. News came from a newspaper or that pinnacle of technology Ceefax/Teletext. No television on-demand with iPlayer or 4OD. We had 4 channels on our telly and a slightly dodgy VHS player.

And of course, this was well before the age of the mobile phone. We used to have to queue up in the foyer of our hall of residence (Mason Hall, now sadly flattened) and use the payphones. We’d ring home, quickly give the number to ring back on and hope someone elses parents didn’t ring before yours could…. A mobile phone would have seemed like the best invention ever. A smartphone would have been unbelieveable – and an iPad would have been something out of Star Trek.

And research was carried out at the library. And pretty much only at the library.

Hmm.. this is turning into a Four Yorkshiremen sketch….

Anyway…..

A student starting university now will almost definitely have their own laptop to work on, and a mobile phone to communicate with friends and family from anywhere. The laptop will be able to access the internet and the wealth of resources that it contains. The University Library will be accessible from anywhere and a lot of the books and journals will have electronic versions.

Access to the internet is the game changer  – I’m currently doing a Masters in Education through a university thats nearly a 2 hour drive away. But I have set foot on campus twice in two years. I can access nearly all the journals and books that I need via the Library system online (and for the rest I can go to a closer uni and use their library instead). Keyword searches help narrow down articles that I should read – and I can bookmark and store links for later.

Smartphones and laptops, plus the internet, have made it so much easier to communicate and research, plus to collaborate with others.

My niece is 6 years old. She has no concept of a camera that uses film. As far as she knows all cameras have a screen on the back so you can see what you’ve taken. She loves my iPad and took to it instantly – making her own animations in ToonTastic or playing Cut the Rope. The idea of the “Digital Native” who instinctively understands this stuff may be not quite as first described – but you can’t deny that this generation of kids are already growing up with this technology readily available, and they “get it”. They have “techno joy” not “techno fear” as Eddie Izzard would say. And this tech is only going to get more powerful and easy to access. Touchscreens and tablets are finally coming of age and becoming much more user-friendly.

So what’s it going to be like 21 years from now? How will todays technology develop. I’d like to think that OLED technology would mean than thin, interactive film would replace the interactive whiteboard and projector. The teacher’s tablet (iPad or whatever) would be connected to this and would display their screen and what they are doing on it. Each student would also have a tablet which would be connected to each others, and to the screen. It would be easy to collaborate with each other via these devices, and to share them on the main screen (or on each others tablets) at any time. Will we finally get decent voice activation? Gesture control is gaining ground with devices like the Kinect. Will something come out of left field and change the game, like the iPad finally did?

To me, 21 years ago doesn’t seem like that long ago. But in technology terms it’s amazing how different our students lives are when compared to our own student days.

Scary eh?