The Resource Magazine For Apple, Atari, and Commodore ...

12
COMPUTE! September/October, 198O. Issue 6
The Bell and Howell system (designed around
their version of the Apple II) comes with their own
variety of PILOT (Mark-PILOT) as the CAI
language. It contains both authority and presentation
systems. Authors may use color graphics and anima
tion with this system. Representatives at the conven
tion were talking about a price of between $5,000
and $7,000 for the whole package.
The advantege of this system over the interactive
video tape lies precisely in the greater variety of
teaching techniques possible with the computer pro
grams. While the system does require the instructor
to spend some development time on-line with the
lesson, it may be no more than that required for
development of in-house training materials. But all
such efforts are very time consuming. I remember a
figure of 40 hours development time for each one
hour of student program given to me several years
ago by the Plato people at the University of Illinois.
Is this effort cost effective? Paper programs also
take many hours, but the equipment is cheaper. I
believe, however, that the potential impact upon the
learner may be great enough to warrant the addi
tional costs. Also, with this new generation of CAI
equipment, costs are plummeting and the machines
are becoming multi-purpose. After all, if you're go
ing to have a personal computer in your home or of
fice, you might as well use it to learn something.
While the personal computer based CAI units
such as the Cameo system are the logical competitors
to the Plato and Boeing time-shared learning
systems, other, more powerful, stand-alone systems
are also being offered. One interesting-looking unit
was shown by Regency Carroll of Champaign, Il
linois (the home of Plato). It's language, USE, allows
judging, help sequence branching, selective erase,
and animation. They do not, I believe, have a video
tape interface. My recollection of their system is that
it is considerably more expensive than the Cameo
system, albeit more powerful. While the developers
may claim an apples and oranges comparison, I
believe that training people will go for the lower end
machines because of the lower initial costs, especially
if they are able to interface these systems with ex
isting video tape equipment.
With all of the systems I saw, however, I felt the
same frustration. After spending two years as a oneperson
training department, I know the enormous
value of canned programs. I would much rather buy
something than spend the time developing it inhouse.
So I look for quality programs. My search
through the convention exhibit hall for quality pro
grams for the computer systems led to very little. I
found only one company, Educational Programming
System, of St. Louis, who offered CompuCourse pro
grams. These combine text and automated activities
such as using the computer to set up an actual
budget in a budgeting course. Their diskettes will be
Intelligent, fast
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Plotting
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tt0 Provides printed program or
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m* Uses print statements — no
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