reality

[joebloggs]

I hereby challenge you to a maths contest against my 15 year old son. Education in the UK is generally excellent, and way ahead of what I did 20 years ago.

Ian

i'll pass, but if he wants to challenge my mother-in-law (whos near retirement age ) , i'll put a few £ on her winning

(she lectures in accountancy at a uni in the phils, i know its a loaded bet, but i only gamble when i know i can win )

everyone thinks kids today are experts in computing and IT becuase they know how to turn a pc on or load winodws

make me , i knew more about puters 25yrs ago than 99% of kids today...

the good old days

[andypaul]

i'll pass, but if he wants to challenge my mother-in-law (whos near retirement age ) , i'll put a few £ on her winning

(she lectures in accountancy at a uni in the phils, i know its a loaded bet, but i only gamble when i know i can win )

everyone thinks kids today are experts in computing and IT becuase they know how to turn a pc on or load winodws

make me , i knew more about puters 25yrs ago than 99% of kids today...

the good old days

So Joe you could program in HTML and use Macros in ms office progs 25 years ago blimey

Yesterday I helped take a Lesson at a School in London in I.T studies I was very impressed and most when offered extra work and to carry on in their break did!

They all created Basic Web pages and some of the work i was shown by the keener ones (who were not a small minority or the usual suspects i must add) was dam good.
They also had after school lessons/club where we got the pupils to write programs on some phones we brought in to the school, in Java. The rate at which they picked this up was incredible and the ideas and creatvity was great to see. Next week we are going to dip into Java and use it on some emedded I.T equipment (ie real life skills which this country badly needs not media studies experts ). The teacher was worried we might leave some of the pupils behind but all have grasped the ideas, like i have written before we simply dont push our kids enough

If it had not been for the mini riot and attempted sexual assault which occured outside the door of the classroom i would have said it really changed my mind.

[Welsh_Italian]

Well now I know you are desperate for a comback, since you have to refer to a war in which the U.S. saved your beloved UK, and you don't have the sense to realize it, or acknowledge it. Your musings are ethnocentricity at its worst, and rather insulting to the thousands of yanks that gave there lives to save your sorry ass.

The point is your misunderstanding of the terms educated, and intelligence, which you used interchangebly. Clearly you divert because you can't defend your misspoken words.

We can do this forever, or you can follow the advice of one of your subscribers and get it back to topic, after all, your the admin, not a spammer.

this is fun actually

And the British Navy stopped the US from being invaded by a superior foe. btw, if you saved our limey asses, the soviets saved uncle Sam. The largest battles by far were between the Germans and the Soviets, who took the brunt of the axis fighting machine by a very large margin. US forces alone would probably have been smashed.

Ok comradeski?

[joebloggs]

So Joe you could program in HTML and use Macros in ms office progs 25 years ago blimey

Yesterday I helped take a Lesson at a School in London in I.T studies I was very impressed and most when offered extra work and to carry on in their break did!

They all created Basic Web pages and some of the work i was shown by the keener ones (who were not a small minority or the usual suspects i must add) was dam good.
They also had after school lessons/club where we got the pupils to write programs on some phones we brought in to the school, in Java. The rate at which they picked this up was incredible and the ideas and creatvity was great to see. Next week we are going to dip into Java and use it on some emedded I.T equipment (ie real life skills which this country badly needs not media studies experts ). The teacher was worried we might leave some of the pupils behind but all have grasped the ideas, like i have written before we simply dont push our kids enough

If it had not been for the mini riot and attempted sexual assault which occured outside the door of the classroom i would have said it really changed my mind.

in the old days ,there wasn't programs to desgin webpages, not like today, yes by hand, sat with me text editor, just as i use to write assembly language by hand in the early 80's.

more than 27yrs on, and i still can remember 6502 mnemonics how sad is that..

things have moved on, IDE's make it so easy to program now, not like the old days of having to link, complie and make it an exe by shelling to dos

i still haven't meet a teenager who surprised me with how much they know about IT, usually how little they know.. .

show me a teenager who knows about database management, system concepts, conceptual data models and not how to print 'hello world' in java

but kids are quick learners, my daughter knows how to get to websites, and little marius knows how to turn the pc and monitor off, esp when i'm downloading ..

but i agree kids are not pushed enough,,

[andypaul]

in the old days ,there wasn't programs to desgin webpages, not like today, yes by hand, sat with me text editor, just as i use to write assembly language by hand in the early 80's.

more than 27yrs on, and i still can remember 6502 mnemonics how sad is that..

things have moved on, IDE's make it so easy to program now, not like the old days of having to link, complie and make it an exe by shelling to dos

i still haven't meet a teenager who surprised me with how much they know about IT, usually how little they know.. .

show me a teenager who knows about database management, system concepts, conceptual data models and not how to print 'hello world' in java

but kids are quick learners, my daughter knows how to get to websites, and little marius knows how to turn the pc and monitor off, esp when i'm downloading ..

but i agree kids are not pushed enough,,

Mate one step at a time and im impressed how many do program like us with our print out from magazines. Most will do something if they see a result. For example one pupil had made a application which made the name inputed look cool and funky in a different font with symbols around it very simple but impressed all the other pupils who wanted a copy and its a start Geez they are only taster lessons

What i was also impressed with is nowdays many schools, colleges and unis at least teach their kids aspects of ecdl and many give them the chance to pass it. I recomend taking the ECDL to any Phills who wanna get a job in a UK office where using Microsoft office is a given almost as much as being able to read and write.

For example if they make an application which they can use so a scanner will scan a paticular area of a page and put a header on the top of the page automatically may not sound much but its the sort of application companies need and want.
It shows them look this I.T marlarky its all sorts of things from creating spreadsheets with very complicated formulas (required in a lot of advanced and not so advanced jobs nowdays to creating an HTML page or using one of the web page creating applications are basic functions in many jobs in non I.T related jobs, but one people need quite often to go on basic courses to do while at work or they outsource.


Not everyone needs to be an I.T gensius but the basic levels of all need to be raised those specialising can learn all about databases yawn

[joebloggs]

one pupil had made a application which made the name inputed look cool and funky in a different font with symbols around it very simple but impressed all the other pupils who wanted a copy and its a start

yes and next they'll be doing their fonts and symbols on someones back wall with a spray can

i'm pulling your leg , i agree with everything you said

when i was at school just b4 i left, the school had just bought a commodore pet , well for me it all started with a article in a PET magazine back in 1980 on how to do assembly language for it and for a few years i was hooked on it, til i got burn't out, and no longer cared
and then i got a 'proper' job

[walesrob]

when i was at school just b4 i left, the school had just bought a commodore pet ,

Our school had 2 BBC computers back in 1984...I remember learning BASIC

10 Type "win2win smells"
20 Goto 10
press ENTER/RUN

win2win smells
win2win smells
win2win smells
win2win smells
win2win smells
win2win smells
win2win smells
win2win smells
win2win smells
win2win smells
win2win smells
win2win smells
win2win smells
win2win smells
win2win smells
win2win smells
win2win smells

hours of fun

[joebloggs]

nice one rob

10 print "scousers are losers!"
20 goto 10

run





need quickbasic, whatever happened to it

[Alan]

POKE 175

IF..........THEN.

Ah, memories - all basic, mind.

Al.

[joebloggs]

don't forget, you might need to PEEK b4 you POKE AL
or you'rll lose what was there

[KeithD]

10 print "Mancs are boring and repetitive!"
20 goto 10

[KeithD]

...and for the Welsh...

10 print "Please read the line below.....
20 goto 10

[Alan]

don't forget, you might need to PEEK b4 you POKE AL
or you'rll lose what was there

Ah yes Joe - I was PEEKING and POKING a lot in those days!

My first 'puter was a VIC20 BTW. 3k of memory don't you know.

Al.

[andypaul]

All these Yank computers what was wrong with sinclairs, dragon and acorns?

[friend]

All these Yank computers what was wrong with sinclairs, dragon and acorns?

Ah yes. The ZX81 with its wobbly RAM pack that added a whole 16K to its native 1K - as long as you had a piece of plasticene to hold it in place. And the Acorn Electron, with a fantastic keyboard, for those of us who couldn't afford the BBC model.

Those were the days.... thank goodness they've gone

[joebloggs]

Ah yes Joe - I was PEEKING and POKING a lot in those days!

My first 'puter was a VIC20 BTW. 3k of memory don't you know.

Al.

vic 20 , i did a few games for that in the early 80's, for a very famous buget label mastertronic ...

still owe me some

probably no one has realised i've not been online for 4 days

been busy doing me relational database assignment

in near 30yrs of IT, by far the hardest subject i've ever done .

[KeithD]

in near 30yrs of IT, by far the hardest subject i've ever done .

I use it in PHP, only took me about 3hrs to pick it up. Very powerful stuff though, although I still use text DAT files for some things.

[joebloggs]

I use it in PHP, only took me about 3hrs to pick it up. Very powerful stuff though, although I still use text DAT files for some things.

theory side is a pain in the scouser keith, not the pratical side, i grew up using dbase2&3 when i was younger

theory side is heavy going, boring conceptual data models, distributed database management, E-R diagrams, normalization etc...

i knew i should have done wireless networking

[Alan]

Wrote some programs in BASIC myself in those days. Had to save them on cassette tape!!!!!

First one I wrote was an adventure called 'Gremda.'

2.6k in length and took about 20 mins to load from tape!!!

LAUGH?????

I never did!

Al.

[joebloggs]

Wrote some programs in BASIC myself in those days. Had to save them on cassette tape!!!!!

First one I wrote was an adventure called 'Gremda.'

2.6k in length and took about 20 mins to load from tape!!!

LAUGH?????

I never did!

Al.

well worse than the vic20 for loading from tape was the zx81, speccy and the atari xl range, could take 45 mins and fail at the end


hows life treating you in the phils AL ?

[IanB]

When I were a lad kids left school at 15, and most of them had qualificationsin little more than metal work. The majority of kids were consigned to "secondary modern" schools which had low academic standards.

You may be as fast as Carol Vorderman, but you don't have her body so you don't get my vote.

Ian