Scott Leblanc’s Grade 3 teacher, Doreen Duncanson, set his career as a computer programmer in motion
EDITOR’S NOTE: Coding in the classroom has leapt to the forefront of global discussions of curriculum for the 21st century as schools in the United Kingdom have incorporated the language behind computers into classroom instruction through all grades. This second segment of a multi-part series explores what is happening in the United Kingdom, while the second segment will relate an early local success story on coding in the classroom and the final part will focus on current coding inclusions in Ontario, the Rainbow District School Board and Island schools.
MANITOULIN—Personal computers have been appearing in homes since the late 1970s (earlier examples of what were termed ‘microcomputers’ were mainly sold in kit form to a tiny esoteric group of uber-nerd hobbyists from the back of magazines like Popular Mechanics), but it wasn’t until well into the 1980s that the first wave of home computers really began to establish a beachhead in homes.
Interaction with these new-fangled inventions remained largely hit-or-miss even, up into the 1990s, and for many young students the opportunity to be exposed to the computer age earlier really depended a lot on whether their individual classroom teacher had a strong personal interest in the new technology and/or whether their parents also had an interest (and the means as microcomputers were still prohibitively expensive for most families).
Former Mindemoya resident Scott Leblanc, who at 42 now lives in Creemore, Ontario and works as a programmer in JAVA and JSP for the popular online shopping website shop.ca, was lucky enough to experience a near perfect storm of exposure to computers, both at home and school thanks to his father and Doreen Duncanson, a teacher at Central Manitoulin Public School (CMPS).
“It actually all started with a PET (Commodore PET) computer my dad (Larry Leblanc) would bring home some weekends from Pontiac School in Wikwemikong,” recalled Mr. Leblanc, his father Larry Leblanc was working in Wikwemikong at the time. “I used to mess around with that.”
The ante was upped a little while later when on a family trip to Grand Rapids, Michigan to visit a former teaching colleague of his father’s they discovered that the local college was “throwing out a bunch of PETs, so we took one back with us across the border.”
The family still has that original PET, noted Mr. Leblanc, and his 10-month-old son got a chance to check it out when Mr. Leblanc and his family came home to the Island for Christmas.
Then Mr. Leblanc’s interest got a strong boost when Ms. Duncanson started up an extra-curricular class for interested students. Scott, then in Grade 3, jumped at the opportunity to hone his nascent skills.
“It wasn’t a large group,” he recalled, “maybe four or five students.”
“I was the teacher at the school who took the computer courses,” recalled Ms. Duncanson. Computers were still in their very earliest stages at that time. “You had to write your own programs,” she said, “and we did exactly that.”
Although she became quite proficient with programming in those early forms of programming languages, Ms. Duncanson said she is now quite happy to let others create the programs she uses. “I learned a lot about computers and although I use my iPad to read a lot these days and I understand what lies underneath it all, I am 72 now and I am happy to have a niece living on the Island who helps me to set things up when I need it,” she laughed.
Ms. Duncanson recalled her school receiving older Commodore PET computers from Manitoulin Secondary School when that school upgraded to newer models. “They were not new by any means,” she said.
One of the key challenges for students interested in computers in those days was that few families had computers at home. “Not many kids had computers at home,” she noted. “Most of those who did were teachers’ children, or the children of professionals.”
That dearth of computers tended to limit the number of youth, and parents, who understood the tsunami of technological change that was approaching the Island’s shores.
“Most of the students were the children of farm families and computers were far outside their everyday lives,” she noted. Times have certainly changed, however, as today farmers are among the most computer-savvy businesspeople around and computers and software technology has revolutionized their production. “Just look at Alex Anstice (a Tehkummah dairy farmer whose online Twitter posts invite the public into the day-to-day lives of farmers),” pointed out Ms. Duncanson.
But at the start of it all, there were “maybe 10 kids” who really got excited about programming and computers. “Most kids just weren’t aware of it,” she said.
To put it in perspective, the early PET computers used a phosphor green screen whose graphics were largely limited to constructs made up of dots, Xs, Os, dashes and slashes.
Strangely enough, most children today are just as oblivious to the roots of the programs that they use everyday on their smartphones, tablets and personal computers.
But the early interest sparked by Ms. Duncanson’s after school group and the availability of having a computer at home gave Scott Leblanc an edge as he moved up the scholastic ladder. His earlier experience in programming gave him step up in later courses of study.
“I studied BASIC in high school, and PASCAL, as actual high school courses,” he recalled. “At the time I was also studying it on my own.” In time he programmed a first aid application.
Programming today involves many tools, he noted. “It is all still essentially using a text editor code.”
Mr. Leblanc said he agreed with the idea of teaching kids about the coding process in schools would likely be a positive thing, even if students didn’t go on to programming careers, per se.
As to programming itself, he notes that at its core it remains very much the same as it was those many years ago. “It is logic,” he said. “I approach it the same way.”
Today, although the Rainbow District School Board, and other Ontario boards, do not incorporate coding to the extent it is being incorporated throughout the United Kingdom’s education system, individual teachers are still making a big difference in local classrooms.
Little Current participated in an Hour of Code event that is introducing students to the joys of coding. This series will explore those activities in the next segment.
