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C00003 00003 Computer Literacy - A Proposal
C00007 00004 Computer Literacy: a Holistic View
C00011 00005 Section I: Introduction.
C00015 00006 Section II: The Form.
C00027 00007 Section III: The Substance.
C00033 00008 Section IV: The Seminar Plan.
C00036 00009 Section V: The Cost.
C00037 00010 Section VI -- Additional Applications of System
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Cā;
A Proposal for a Faculty Seminar
on Computing
John R. Allen
Ronald L. Danielson
Ruth E. Davis
Daniel W. Lewis
Raymond B. Yarbrough
Department of Electrical Engineering
and
Computer Science
March 5, 1981
Computer Literacy - A Proposal
There has been interest expressed for development of a course in Computer
Literacy for students in the College of Humanities. The computer has had
a notable impact on our society and the extent of the impact is expected
to grow.
Computing has moved from the realm of an electronic, mechanical curiosity
into the arena of intellectual study. One may question computers computers
as surrogate decision-makers, study computation as a fundamental
principle, and contemplate the future computer-based society; all are
issues worthy of a humanist's sensivity.
In the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, we have
considered this, and decided that it is worthwhile to explore the matter.
We have engaged John Allen to develop and teach a course in the Art of
Computer Science, intended for students with no computer background. We
believe a similar course would fulfill the computer literacy needs of
Humanities students.
Humanities students inhabit a technological culture, and thus need an
accurate technological view as well as a philosophical and artisitic
perspective. It is the joint responsibility of the university faculties to
prepare them to understand this computer age. The Humanities faculty
provides a reserve of perspectives on human endeavor, and should share in
the development and sustenace of the course.
We therefore propose to offer a seminar in the art of computing to the
university faculty. The seminar is described in the following pages. The
first offering will be in the summer of 1981, involving the School of
Humanities, and a full program for the academic year 1981-82 would then be
established for the general university faculty. During the year, faculty
members with a natural talent for the subject and an interest in doing so,
would work together to develop the course for undergraduates.
This program will require additional computing facilities. A computer
network utilizing a number of "personal" computers as described in the
attachment appears to be the most economical solution. This system will
cost approximately $5,000 per station and each station will accomodate
five participants per week under full usage. Space will be necessary to
house the computers.
Computer Literacy: a Holistic View
A Faculty Seminar
Abstract.
This report discusses the substantive issues underlying the phemonenon
called "computing" and proposes a seminar to develop a solid understanding
of modern computing for the technical and non-technical University
faculty.
The local issues involve the form and substance of computing -- the form:
the computing devices, their languages, and the techniques that we use to
communicate our requests; the substance: the principles of computation as
fundamental tools of thought.
The more global issues involve the impact of computing on culture and
society --the interplay between the arts and sciences, and computing.
This area moves out of the technological domain and views computing in the
more general context of human endeavor. We expect to draw heavily on the
experience and skill of the seminar participants, bringing their depth and
understanding to bear on the general cultural picture.
We expect the seminar to provide the participants with two tangible
benefits. First, the participants will establish a level of competency
with the tools that will support their independent application of
computing in their field. More importantly, we believe that the
participants will be prepared to understand and relate the impact of
computing on their speciality to that of society in general.
As a computing tool, we propose a small local network of personal
computers. We propose the network, rather than existing campus facilities
for several reasons. First, this network will give participants exposure
to the kind of computing that they and their children will soon experience
--personal computation; second, these machines allow experimentation with
interactive facilities not yet inexpensively available on large machines
--rapid, visual presentations; and third, these local networks offer
substantial payoff in decreasing the computing load on the large-scale
campus facilities. This network strategy frees the DEC20/60 for its forte
--large computation and massive data manipulation, while giving the new
users a computational medium that will support their learning; much like
using flight simulators to train pilots.
Contents of Report
Section I -- Introduction
Section II -- The Form: The Tools
Section III -- The Substance: The Ideas
Section IV -- The Seminar Plan
Section V -- The Cost
Section I: Introduction.
It is important to view the "computing phenomenon" in a broader context
than just a technological, engineering accomplishment. While it is true
that electronic computing machinery is a recent addition to the world's
society, the ideas of computation --indeed even primitive realizations of
these ideas-- have existed for many centuries. It is therefore important
to put "computing" in perspective to the development of other arts and
sciences: examining the fundamental ideas independent of their current
manifestation as "Computers"; relating computing to "information
processing"; relating the "information explosion" to "knowledge";
examining the impact of personal computing on society, technologically as
well as aesthetically and ethically.
One should view the content of "computer literacy" as comprised of two
facets: the "form" (or training) facet, and the "substance" (or
educational) facet. To us, literacy in "substance" implies that one
understands the fundamental principles that support the specific
discipline. Literacy in "form" implies that one is conversant with the
current technological tools. In the computing field, technology has the
typical physical aspect of an engineering discipline --the devices that
carry out the computations. However one important novelty of computing
technology is its dependence on, and attention to, areas not traditionally
associated with engineering.
In particular, there is a linguistic component to computation. One
expresses requests for computation as "programs" in artificial languages;
these programs may be as simple as numerical computations; they may be as
complex as programs that attempt to simulate some fragment of intelligent
behavior. In either case, these programs represent the "literature" of
the languages and, as such, may be analyzed. This analysis involves
issues of style, elegance and expressibility --questions of quality too
often ignored.
The integrated examination of these facets -- "substance" for mind
training, and "form" for fluency-- can give content to the term "computer
literacy". This report proposes a University faculty seminar that will
establish a solid understanding of modern computing and its relation to
society.
Section II: The Form.
Computing is a puzzling phenomenon. It is driven both physically and
intellectually, and its "form" contains both these components. The
physical component contains the devices --the instruments that we use to
express our ideas and requests. This component is apparent in other
technology-driven domains; however, in computing we also have an
intellectual component.
In computing, we express our ideas and requests to the technology in
languages. Though these languages are "artificial", rather than
"natural", one should expect that a literature exist. Unfortunately, the
quality of expression in these computing languages typically is quite
poor, though a few exceptions exist. A study of computing should discuss
this phenomenon of expressibility, and examine the issue of quality in
computing languages.
Like the phenomenon of driving, fluency in the computing domain requires
experience with an instrument. Therefore a computing laboratory is needed
to reinforce the concepts. As with other experimental domains, computing
experience should be gained on the most modern equipment possible. The
computing device of the next decade is the "personal computer".
These personal computing devices will soon supply the power of the last
decade's research machines. The potential for information processing is
staggering, not just in terms of the computing power but, more
importantly, in terms of the novel ways that people will be able to
interact with the machine. In this view of information interchange, the
local user will be able to interact with other individuals through a
network, and will be able to send requests or information to larger
machines when the local processing power is not adequate. In short, a
computational community is formed, where the "local nodes" are highly
interactive personal machines, perhaps with some shared devices (for
example, mass storage or printers); these nodes are linked together to
larger machines that can supply more processing power and perhaps a more
global view on the local communities. We propose to supply an Interactive
Programming Laboratory that will be a prototype for a local computing
community.
Besides bringing the concept of personal computation to Santa Clara
University, the laboratory will be able to relieve much of the burden from
the DEC 20/60. Many applications one experiences while learning about a
system (for example, text editing) are well-suited to these personal
machines; several software systems that are available on the DEC 20/60 are
also available on personal computers. Experience has shown that these
smaller systems can, in many cases, operate at least one-third the
effective speed of the larger machine, while costing many times less than
main-frame computers. This makes small computers very attractive for
education. One may then learn about computation --even to the point of
using the same languages and editors-- and not misappropriate the
expensive main-frame. That machine is then utilized for massive
computation or large scale data base activities --tasks not well-suited to
small micro computers.
The small machines can offer several packages that are not available on
the larger processors. The hallmark of these applications is their highly
interactive behavior, involving rapid manipulation of screen images to
communicate results. Such activity is difficult to sustain on a
time-shared machine since the amount of information needed to change the
screen tends to be substantial while the communication channels to
terminals tend to be low speed; furthermore, unpredictable execution rates
on a shared machine can detrimentally affect visual performance at a local
node.
The laboratory will demonstrate these interactive applications and offer
the opportunity to the seminar participants to become comfortable with
these techniques. It is this class of applications to which the general
public will be exposed, and it will be this class of individual that will
be responsible for disseminating an accurate, humanistic view of computing
to the University community.
Several classes of examples are projected for use in the laboratory. The
important components in these applications involve a personal,
user-oriented flavor. These characteristics are supported by simple
command languages, whose execution results in immediate visual/graphical
output. This kind of immediate feedback puts the novice at ease when
learning about the computing tools. The following paragraphs outline
several of these tools.
First, an elegant video text/word-processing system, that is a substantial
subset of a DEC-20 editor, is available for these personal machines.
Since a large portion of computer usage involves text-processing,
familiarity with such systems is necessary.
We will introduce a data-base management system that will supply the
components necessary for the establishment of a user-customized
information system. With this facility, the seminar participants can use
the computer as a sophisticated retrieval and storage system.
A business applications product that is attracting substantial interest,
VisiCalc, is only available on micro-processors. This system displays a
segment of a business ledger in such a way that whenever elements of
related quantities are modified, one immediately sees all ramifications of
that action. It is an excellent tool for planning and hypothesizing.
We will also have available, the personal computing language named LOGO.
LOGO, the subject of the book, "Mindstorms" by Seymor Papert, is an
elegant, but powerful language for teaching about computing ideas in a
very "non-engineering" style. LOGO is one of the best representatives of
the new personal languages.
At a further level, we will examine the ideas and techniques that support
the applications software. Though the discussion of the ideas is primarily
the concern of the "substance" part of the seminar, the lab will have
several general purpose interactive systems available to demonstrate
issues of expressibility in computer languages. These systems include:
USCD Pascal, the widely used personal Pascal system; Smalltalk, the
example of the Xerox PARC personal computer language; and LISP, the
language that supports much of the content of Smalltalk and LOGO.
We expect to have an experimental Computer-Aided Learning system available
to aid the novice in learning about LISP. This includes on-line
documentation and assistance. One novel benefit of computers is that they
are potentially able to aid a user in helping to understand the computing
phenomenon itself; other technologies are not so fortunate.
Section III: The Substance.
Just as there is more to creative writing than knowing how to type, so too
we must not overlook the explication of the fundamental ideas in
computing. As with other fundamental disciplines, the principal computing
ideas are not technological; they are intellectual. In the computing
sciences these principles are based on simple information processing
concepts involving the manipulation of symbols. These symbol manipulation
rules, coupled with the phenomenal speed of present-day computers, result
in the powerful machines that we now see.
Computing languages allow one to combine these simple information
processing steps into complex entities. These more complex entities form
the literature of computing. Just as some natural languages have
difficulty expressing some concepts, many of these artificial languages
suffer from restricted expressibility. A few languages exist that are
worthy of study; they support creative expression and experimentation with
ideas. It is these languages that are worth presenting, initially to
illustrate examples of "quality computing literature", and ultimately
allow the participants to express their own creative experimentation in
computing terms.
The challenge, then, is to present these concepts in such a way that they
are clear and practical. We are fortunate to have at least three useful
models that we can look to for support:
First, as an interesting piece to "set the tone", Robert Pirsig's novel
"Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" gives valuable perspectives on
the relationships between art and science, and more generally on the
concern for quality in human endeavor. This work supports the notion that
creative art and science are intertwined, and thus one should not view the
phenomenon of computing as a purely technical contribution.
A less oblique support for our work is the Pulitzer prize-winning
non-fiction work entitiled "Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden
Braid", by Doug Hofstadter. This fascinating book relates many
computational ideas underlying the mathematics of K. Godel to themes
appearing in M. C. Escher's art and J. S. Bach's music. It is a highly
readable account of many of the ideas that support modern computing.
A direct reference to modern computing and its applications is available
in the work "Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas" by
Seymour Papert. This book discusses how computing ideas can play a
substantial role in reforming education and revitalizing learning.
At a more global and unifying perspective, the work of Oswald Spengler,
"The Decline of the West", offers insights on the impact of technological
advancements in other cultures and civilizations. This work encompasses
the views of the previous selections, relating the general issues in the
historical development of cultures to that culture's view of mathematics.
A compelling argument may be made that modern computing, as a mathematical
theory, represents the kernel of a new culture, and we are involved in its
birth.
The technical and cultural aspects of these issuse are discussed in a book
being written by John Allen. This text discusses the computational ideas
directly, relating them to the laboratory work, and to the wider societal
questions. A draft of this book will be used for the course, "The Art of
Computer Science", this spring at Santa Clara University, and in the
summer at the Eleventh Annual Institute in Computer Science also to be
held at Santa Clara University.
Section IV: The Seminar Plan.
We would expect to cover the following material in a 40-60 hour seminar,
the duration depending on the intensity of the treatment.
The Reading and Discussion of
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance,
Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas,
Godel Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid,
The Decline of the West.
The study of J. Allen's notes of computing.
Discussion and experience with computing tools:
EMACS: A DEC-20 editing and word-processing language also available
on personal machines.
LOGO: A graphical-based personal computer language, used for teaching
computational ideas to "children of all ages".
Smalltalk: A personal computer language in the style of LOGO, also suitable
for the design of general-purpose computing systems.
Visicalc: A graphical business-oriented language, based on Artificial
Intelligence programming techniques.
LISP: The primary "substance" language for the course. Also a foundational
tool for computation theory and Artificial Intelligence.
UCSD Pascal: A standard "computer science" language, available on
personal computers in an interactive setting.
Section V: The Cost.
The following is an approximate budget, based on over-the-counter prices
for single units and no educational discounts:
Ten Z-80 microcomputers with 64K RAM $30,000
Ten display systems from Scion Corp. $15,000
Mass storage and network $11,000
Printer $1,500
Software costs $8,000
Instructor Salary $16,000
_______
Total $81,500
Section VI -- Additional Applications of System
One may also consider the hardware and network as it relates to the global
needs of the EECS department. Existing and future courses can utilize this
system; even in ways not possible of the cammpus system. In particular,
systems software experimentation cannot be performed on a shared machine
that must remain reliable and accessible to many users. Courses in the
design of operating systems, computer networks, and distributed processing
are all within this category.
Additional Applications of System
This system may be effectively utilized in a broad range of courses.
Particular attention should be given to its applicability in courses that
would require implementation of system-level hardware and software. These
applications are not possible on a shared machine since they can damage
the operating system and affect other users.
Undergraduate Applications
E3 The system will support UCSD Pascal, as well as a full array of
more traditional language systems and program preparation aids. This
interactive programming system is not available of DEC 20's.
E10 The system has the potential to support graphics and computerized
mechanical drawing.
EECS15 UCSD Pascal, TLC LISP, and Rosetta Smalltalk will all run on this
system. Each language system offers its unique and valuable
perspective on data structuring.
EECS101 Same considerations as EECS15, but emphasis on in-depth
performance in specific languages.
EECS xyz (Operating Systems) System will be useful for development, and
indispensible for experimentation with implementations of operating
systems. One cannot expect to experiment on the campus DEC 20 facility.
Special topics courses: This system is an integral part of the Spring
1981 course, The Art of Computer Science. Further possible topics
include: network architectures, distributed computation, interactive
programming systems, computer graphics, intelligent computer-aided
learning.
Freshman induction course: The system will give students an accurate
view of interactive computing, including an introduction to the
benefits of interactive technical writing.
Graduate Impact
The system is valuable in at least 301, both parts of 310, Functional
programming, Artificial Intelligence, and Operating systems.