Teaching computers in Canada from the 1980's

Initially, in Kindergarten we didn't have any computers at all. There might have been an odd occasion where we could go to another classroom to use a computer - but mostly they kept the K grade kids off of those expensive machines.

For grade 1 and beyond, we started to have a single Apple II computer in some classes. I remember it being equipped with both floppy disk drive and a cassette type drive as well. I wish I remembered the learning games available on those. I have a distant memory of a goose type game.

Funny to think, support for these computers were from the teachers themselves, on the Apple II's there was a single teacher who was tech oriented (and maybe had an Apple at home herself) who provided "IT support".

To that point, our French teacher- was recruited to become (and I am sure they sent him to training) the system admin for our Unisys ICON computer lab.

In 1981, Ontario formed an Advisory Committee on Computers in Education. They came up with a statement to help guide their efforts:

It is now clear that one of the major goals that education must add to its list of purposes, is computer literacy. The world of the very near future requires that all of us have some understanding of the processes and uses of computers.

The lab was a very exciting development, requiring a whole room in the school- as it was indeed a "computer lab". Classes would have scheduled times to be in the lab. There was a limited number of computers in the lab so sometimes, we used the computers with a partner. Or they would split the class into 2, and rotate children on the days. The lab admin (my French teacher) would stay in the lab with half the kids, while the usual teacher was in the classroom with the other half.

The computers were not cutting edge performance wise, but had most notably, a trackball when at the time, mice were still not common. To 'click', you pressed a keyboard Action button. As the trackball was integrated with the keyboard, the Action button wasn't far away, and usually pressed with your thumb.

About that trackball- before entering the lab, it was standard practice for everyone to visit the bathroom to wash their dirty, grubby kid hands - so as to not get said dirt/sand in the trackball device. This procedure has stuck with me all my life and whenever I use a computer I feel the need to have clean hands, or to wash my hands before using the computer! Its amazing how strongly this has stuck with me.

Back to those computer lab machines- initially they had no local storage, so they saved to a file server which I've read started out as a 10 MB hard disk. That file server was named a LexICON. Anytime there were updates/upgrades/fixes to be made, at our school at least, it was the responsibility of our French teacher.

Eventually those machines made their way out of the lab, and into individual classrooms as well. I can recall newer versions of them being used still when I was in grade 7-8. Although they were quite dated at the time and generally not used.

In their time though they were quite good teaching devices, giving many kids my age, a start on computers. Multi colour screens, easy to use trackball, built in ability to play basic sounds - running QNX based operating systems. QNX being founded in 1980 and based in Ottawa, Canada - still operating today.

Coincidentally, later in life I would work for a time at Unisys. But at that time, the company was more about providing IT services instead of making unique computer systems.