Talk:Joel Barlow High School

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Todo

This article really needs some cleanup - it isn't very well-organized (compared to other school articles). --Core des at talk. o.o;; 00:55, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Historic Computing

JBHS has a history of periodic investment in advanced computing technology. Here's some information from the 20th century.

Installed	Retired	Manufacturer	Model	Operating System
1979?	?	Digital Equipment Corporation	PDP-11/34	RSTS/E
1973?	1979?	Digital Equipment Corporation	PDP-8/E	OS/8
1967?	1973?	IBM	IBM 1620

The PDP-8/E was used for attendance and also BASIC programming. In an interesting remote access method, even for the 1970s, Easton and Redding middle school students would create their own BASIC program using special computer cards. Math textbooks included sample BASIC programs to help students probe further into concepts. During Math class, the student would use a No. 2 pencil and color in boxes on specially printed mark sense cards designed for entering BASIC language source code (Zoom in on middle card). Entering a single BASIC source code line per card involved:

coloring in the line number's digits in columns 1 to 3,
choosing the BASIC keyword (LET, FOR, IF, END, etc.) from column 4 or 6,
and using the BASIC template to mark the remaining characters for the line, up to 34 characters.

Later versions of the mark sense card printed the template information onto the DEC BASIC mark sense card.

Note that OS/8 BASIC did not support lowercase characters. The ASR-33 Teletype only supported uppercase characters. To print lower case, or even script, text the pen plotter had to be used. This device would to slowly draw out lines with a pen onto a single sheet of paper. The plotter looked something like this HP 9862A.

The student's BASIC programs, entered onto stacks of cards, would be gathered up from the class, sent to JBHS, input through the card reader, and a paper listing made. Also, the source code syntax error listing was printed, or if there were no errors, the program was run and the output printed or a run-time error was printed to paper. The computer cards and paper output would then be sent back to the middle school for the next week's class. With turnaround time of a week on programs, students rapidly learned to be extremely careful with their program source code. These odd cards allowed whole classes of students to get programming experience without training them to use keypunches. The district leased just one of IBM's keypunches for use in the computer room at JBHS.

As the computerized attendance system developed, the home room teacher was supplied with a cards for each student. If a student was absent that card was sent to office, and the cards were combined and fed input the card reader. The cards for absentee students were then sorted and sent back to the homeroom for the next day. The report generated allowed the school to quickly contact parents and also monitor students cumulative attendance. A difficulty arose when the cards became worn and eventually needed to be duplicated and replaced. Frequently absent students had the cards with the most damage.

This gem of a source shows JBHS was one of the first high schools to have a computer in the 1960s:

Connecticut State Dept. of Education, Hartford. Bureau of Elementary and Secondary Education (December 1968). "Survey of the Instructional Use of the Computer in Connecticut's Public and Private High Schools" (PDF). ERIC - Education Resources Information Center. p. 7. Archived (PDF) from the original on 25 April 2015. Retrieved 2020-02-20. The results of a survey (877 response) of all public and private secondary schools in Connecticut during May of 1967 indicate that more than 10% are making some instructional use of computers. These 34 schools which utilize computers provided information on the teachers and students who were using the computer, the subjects being taught, the type of hardware involved, the software utilized, and the location of the computer. The survey showed a 240% increase in computer use in a year's time and the introduction of two new subjects, computer science and programing[sic], into the school curriculum.

includes a table on p. 7, excerpted here:

Town	School	Contact Person	Subjects Involved	Freestanding	Time Shared	Hardware Used	Location (If other than school)	Language
Redding	Joel Barlow High School	Russell Dobelstein ^[1]	Mathematics Science Social Studies	Yes	No	IBM 1620		FORTRAN SYMBOLIC MACHINE

References

^ "Dr. Russell H. Dobelstein: August 24, 1927 - November 28, 2009: Obituary". In 1952 Russ made the move into what would be one of his lifelong loves, Teaching. He went to Bullard Havens Technical School to teach Math and develop a football team and his career took off. In 1954 Russ and Mill bought their family home in Trumbull, CT. In 1957 Russ received his Master's Degree in Mathematical Education from Fairfield University and took his next career step to Andrew Ward High School in Fairfield, CT where he coached Andrew Ward to its state football championship. He eventually went on to Joel Barlow High School in Redding, CT as Math Department Chairman, and then onto Ellington High School in Ellington, CT, culminating his career in receiving the State of CT Teacher of the Year award. During all of this, time he had been a Matriculating Student in the Doctorate Program at University Of Connecticut and was awarded his PHD in 1977.

--Lent (talk) 10:01, 20 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

[dobelstein2009-1] "Dr. Russell H. Dobelstein: August 24, 1927 - November 28, 2009: Obituary". In 1952 Russ made the move into what would be one of his lifelong loves, Teaching. He went to Bullard Havens Technical School to teach Math and develop a football team and his career took off. In 1954 Russ and Mill bought their family home in Trumbull, CT. In 1957 Russ received his Master's Degree in Mathematical Education from Fairfield University and took his next career step to Andrew Ward High School in Fairfield, CT where he coached Andrew Ward to its state football championship. He eventually went on to Joel Barlow High School in Redding, CT as Math Department Chairman, and then onto Ellington High School in Ellington, CT, culminating his career in receiving the State of CT Teacher of the Year award. During all of this, time he had been a Matriculating Student in the Doctorate Program at University Of Connecticut and was awarded his PHD in 1977.

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