Computer Education Support Structures in Victorian Schools in the 1980s

Prior to the 1970s, the idea of introducing school students to the use of computers, or of a school owing its own computer was difficult to imagine. This situation began to change during the 1970s and accelerated in the 1980s. While microcomputers were much cheaper and more easily handled than minis and mainframes, in the late 1970s they were still quite foreign to most school teachers. This paper tells the story of how a Travelling Computer Road Show, teachers seconded as Computer Education Consultants, a Computer Education Centre, Subject Teacher Associations and several other support structures were used in Victoria to facilitate the Microcomputers in Education revolution that changed the education landscape in the early to mid 1980s. The paper also reflects on how the adoption of computers in schools really affected school education.