I went to a Montessori elementary school until 5th grade. The Montessori curriculum was a lot more computer-intensive, at least in my experience. One of the things we learned in 4th grade was QBasic and a little VisualBasic programming.
Most people are surprised when I tell them I learned this at that age. I always just figured that it was a standard thing to know, since computers are everywhere and were becoming exponentially more important back then.
Of course, it was more to teach hands-on math and logic than it was out of actual neccesity, but I still think it was a good idea. Did anyone else here who is a child of the 90s learn any programming languages in elementary (or high) school?
I took Q-Basic my freshman year and C++ my Junior and Senior year of high school. The year after I graduated, they switched the C++ classes to Java. As far as I know, no programing courses were offered in my school system below the high school level. The closest we got was a semester of typing on old hard-drive free Apples in sixth grade. That was in 1996, so we were a bit behind the times with the computers used in typing class. The rest of the computers in the school were up to date and were integrated into our regular courses.
There was no Q-Basic when I was in elementary school, but I taught myself BASIC when I was in 7th grade on an IBM System 360/195 running MUSIC (the McGill University System for Interactive Computing).
Hell, I am older than you and I learned Basic (not QBASIC but essentially the same thing) on an Apple IIE starting in 4th grade. Louisiana state law required that each Parish (county) start a Gifted and Talented program and I was the first andonly student to qualify for a couple of years. I had my own teacher and two! computers that were essentially mine. I got pretty good at it fast and the next year I got a Commodore 64 computer for Christmas. I got those magazines where you had to type in the programs and I modified those to do different things. I even bought a book and tried to teach myself Assembly language in 5th grade but I think I reached the end of my capabilities with that one.
I ended up in computer software consulting so I guess all that was foretelling. Even though I am only 33, I have told people that I have 25 years of experience with a straight face.
There are plenty of kids that can do that stuff given the opportunity.
I came in before QBasic. In the early 80s we learned Waterloo BASIC on Commodore PETs. We also messed around with learning the basics of electronics using Rocky’s Boot on Apple computers.
The absolute pinnacle (read: nadir) was in high school. Not only did we have the “pleasure” of learning Turing, we did it on ICON computers. Never heard of those, have you? I’d be shocked and awed if you did, because they didn’t exist outside of Ontario, having been created by CEMCorp specifically to meet a computing-in-schools standard set by the Ontario education ministry. They existed and disappeared within the span of a few years and learning how to use them was an excersize in utter pointlessness further compounded by the fact that we had to learn Turing language. Turing, for Pete’s sake! Yay, Ontario education ministry! (To be fair though, ICONs were kinda cool, with a nice GUI and decent graphics for the era, but since it was all completely proprietary and used nowhere but in schools, knowledge of their use amounted to digital masturbation)
It wasn’t 'til I dragged my ass to college that we learned anything useful, like C/C++. 'Course, that same course also taught Clipper (die, die, die!) and 80x86 assembler (fun but pointless) so it was a double-edged sword, and by this time I’d already taught myself several flavours of BASIC, 6502 and 68000 assembler anyway, but it was all good. Programming is fun, and one of these days I’m going to pick it up again and maybe write stuff for PDAs/smartphones.
QBASIC? I learned LOGO and BASIC on a Commodore PET when I was in about the third grade. This was in the early-80’s, and I was lucky enough to be picked (probably because I was really good in science) for some sort of pilot program designed to teach computers to kids.
We had ‘computer’ class once a week in a Catholic parochial elementary school. We learned some very basic BASIC on ‘IBM clones’. This would have been mid to late 80’s.
I knew someone about my age who had a couple of programming courses in high school–or maybe they just had a computer club or something. Based on age this couldn’t have been much later than 1975, if a all later, and he managed to get an IT job right out of high school. Perhaps the teacher’s recommendation carried a lot of weight in his community (Boulder CO). At any rate, he was one of the best programmers I’ve ever met.
We were never taught it, but I did go ahead and learn it on my own at about the same age. In high school, they offered a Pascal course and a C++ course. I took the Pascal one but not the C++ one.
I learned punch cards in elementary school. But, that was only because someone brought a computer in and let us play with it a bit.
Yes, I feel old now, thanks… pass me some of that Geritol, BiblioCat.
In Jr High school, our science teacher (a really great guy) bought a TRS-80 model 1 with his own money and set it up in what used to be a storage closet. A few of us students were lucky enough that we were allowed to skip one class a day and go play with the computer. We’d skip 1st period one day, 2nd period the next, etc. Our “instruction” basically (heh, sorry for the puns) consisted of “well, there it is, no one knows how to use it, good luck!” and we had to figure it all out on our own.
We taught ourselves basic and a bit of assembly code. We then taught other teachers, who used that knowledge to create the first computer classes in the high school.
I learned it in high school… Though by then it had long been dead for any use except as a basic (cough) introduction to the concept of programming. It was also by far the most advanced computer class we had… I think that there were some typing classes and an “Introduction to the Internet” class (Think “Class, go to google and try to find me a recipe for pizza… ready… set… go!”)
Hmmm. There was no Apple ][E until I got out of college. I somehow doubt you’re older than me.
I’m curious who this friend was, since I went to Boulder High School about that time and took programming classes at CU. My senior year we set up a computer class at the high school. I taught the APL segment.
Applesoft Basic in High School (9th grade)
Oh, I have heard of Turing and actually used it in college as part of a course on algorithms (anaylizing efficiancy – O(n), O(n lg n), O(n[sup]2[/sup]), etc)
In first grade, I learned to count on the same painted wooden blocks that my school had used since it’d been built in 1918. It was a huge deal when we got our first electric typewriters when I was in junior high . . .
On a related note, who else learned to use slide rules in high school?
My school had a big huge demo slide rule (the thing was at least six feet long), and we were all expected to be able to multiple and divide on one. I think it was retired shortly after I graduated in the mid-70’s.
My first programming class was in high school in the late '70s. I used an ancient Wang system and BASIC. My FORTRAN class in college was punch card on a CDC 6600 system.
BTW, HS Chemistry was all slide rule. Physics was where calculators were first allowed, and the teacher really looked down on anyone who didn’t have a Reverse Polish calculator. I had one of the first programmable TIs instead…
