Ebook: History of Computing in Education: IFIP 18th World Computer Congress TC3/TC9 1st Conference on the History of Computing in Education 22–27 August 2004 Toulouse, France

This work derives from a conference discussing the history of computing in education. This conference is the first of hopefully a series of conferences that will take place within the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) and hence, we describe it as the First Conference on the History of Computing in Education (HCE1). These proceedings represent a collection of works presented at the HCE1 Conference held in association with the IFIP 2004 World Computer Congress held in Toulouse, France. Contributions to this volume range from a wide variety of educational perspectives and represent activities from four continents. The HCE1 conference represents a joint effort of the IFIP Working Group 9.7 on the History of Computing and the IFIP Technical Committee 3 on Education. The HCE1 Conference brings to light a broad spectrum of issues and spans fourcontinents. It illustrates topics in computing education as they occurred in the “early days” of computing whose ramifications or overtones remain with us today. Indeed, many of the early challenges remain part of our educational tapestry; most likely, many will evolve into future challenges. Therefore, this work provides additional value to the reader as it will reflect in part the future development of computing in education to stimulate new ideas and models in educational development.

This book looks at the history of computing in education from two points of view – as a history of the impact of computing on education over the past forty years and as the use of the history of computing as a pedagogical tool in computing education. These two intertwined views look back at computer education and the ways in which organizations have attempted to use computers to enhance teaching and learning from elementary education through university studies in several countries.

Topics include: considerations of cybernetics and informatics; government sponsored open source software for school education; learning with the artificial sciences; technology leading to historic changes; ICT in Catalan schools; streams in the history of computer education in Australia; growth of computing technology for education in India; computing and education in the UK; evolution of e-inclusion for the disabled; educational hypermedia computing; keyboard training; studies of educational computing projects; and using computing history to enhance teaching.

History of Computing in Education is unique in its topic, the field having not been the subject of extensive study in the past. While there have been several books on the history of computing, a study of the impact of computing on education is only now receiving due attention. This book derives from contributions made at the History of Computing in Education conference at the IFIP 18th World Computer Congress, held in August 2004 in Toulouse, France and sponsored by the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP).

Teachers, students, researchers, authors, and education developers should find this work as a welcome addition to their educational repertoire. It will also provide new dimensions of breadth and depth in the evolution of computing in education.