10 May
2007
10 May
'07
9:16 p.m.
In article <464318FE.23726.13D366A at cclist.sydex.com>,
"Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> writes:
On 10 May 2007 at 13:41, Richard wrote:
The messaging areas and chat were part of the instructional
environment. You could take the lessons, but you could also
participate in the discussions with the instructor and other students.
When taking a lesson, you could request real-time chat from the TA in
order to assist you with the lesson. I know this because I took
courses that leveraged PLATO. UDel had the entire setup: the
mainframe and the terminal rooms scattered around the campus. They
even had musical tone generators attached to the terminals in the
music building and you could use them (with headphones, to prevent you
It was the genesis of:
- computer based/assisted/automated instruction
- interactive chat
- messaging areas
- online gaming
- massive multiplayer gaming
- graphical gaming
So yeah, it was tremendously influential.
My question mostly related not to the recreational use, but rather to
the first of your points--the instructional value. from annoying other people in the room) for musical
instruction.
I seem to
recall that the original plasma terminals were freakishly expensive
and that time on the system was no bargain either.
The institutions that owned their own Cyber mainframe obviously
thought it was worth the cost. UDel and UIUC were two of the big
installations, IIRC.
I remember that Plato was Bill Norris' darling and
there was a push
to get it used anyway it could be used. In particular, I remember
that some internals subjects at CDC were programmed as Plato courses
(e.g. "Everything you never wanted to know about 6RM") but that any
useful level of detail simply wasn't there.
That sort of critique could be applied to any computer-based learning,
IMO. At least with PLATO, when done right, you could chat with the TA
or instructor to get more information. Of course this had to be done
during "office hours", just like with a physical instructor.
I'll rephrase my question as "Was the CAI
delivered by PLATO worth
the investment?"
I think UDel's answer would be yes. It was very heavily used. Many
times the PLATO terminal rooms were full and there were several of
them around campus. They were used for instruction in many subject
areas, so it wasn't the pet darling of one department.
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