Comments on: Second (or third?) thoughts http://alexlittle.net/blog/2009/03/14/second-or-third-thoughts/ Wed, 23 May 2012 11:17:14 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 By: Marc Eisenstadt http://alexlittle.net/blog/2009/03/14/second-or-third-thoughts/comment-page-1/#comment-2620 Marc Eisenstadt Mon, 23 Mar 2009 13:06:58 +0000 http://alexlittle.net/blog/?p=871#comment-2620 Hi Alex - for what it's worth, if I think back to my early days at the Open University, we were trying to teach computer programming to Psychology students who a) were not really interested b) were (sometimes) quite technophobic c) had no computers at all - anywhere Students had to travel, usually dozens of miles but sometimes hundreds, to a study centre where they could access a time-shared 'terminal' - a 300 characters-per-second teletype machine. There were a grand total of about 200 of these terminals distributed around the UK, and we had thousands of students on the course (and there were hundreds of courses, many of them also competing for these resources). So everyone had to book their time carefully. So, shared limited resources in daunting conditions: but in the end the students absolutely loved the opportunity. I know times have moved on, but if you're wondering whether it's worthwhile in such daunting conditions, I can only assume that the answer is a resounding YES! Keep up the great work... Cheers -Marc Hi Alex – for what it’s worth, if I think back to my early days at the Open University, we were trying to teach computer programming to Psychology students who

a) were not really interested

b) were (sometimes) quite technophobic

c) had no computers at all – anywhere

Students had to travel, usually dozens of miles but sometimes hundreds, to a study centre where they could access a time-shared ‘terminal’ – a 300 characters-per-second teletype machine. There were a grand total of about 200 of these terminals distributed around the UK, and we had thousands of students on the course (and there were hundreds of courses, many of them also competing for these resources). So everyone had to book their time carefully.

So, shared limited resources in daunting conditions: but in the end the students absolutely loved the opportunity. I know times have moved on, but if you’re wondering whether it’s worthwhile in such daunting conditions, I can only assume that the answer is a resounding YES!

Keep up the great work…

Cheers

-Marc

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