After Mainframes: Computer Education and Microcomputers in Western Switzerland during the 1980s and 1990s

ABSTRACT

This article analyses the developments in computer education in French-speaking Western Switzerland in the 1980s and 1990s. It investigates how computer education changed with the arrival of microcomputers, who the agents of these changes were, and with what sociopolitical and economic developments these pedagogical changes interacted. By analysing archival material from five cantonal departments of education and from Raymond Morel (at the time, Western Switzerland’s most influential educational IT expert), it is argued that computer education in Western Switzerland’s general education experienced three shifts. First, education with computers displaced education about computers in the first half of the 1980s. Second, from the mid-1980s onwards, office applications became central. Third, computer education morphed into telecommunications education around 1990. The paper contributes to the historiography of local school computers and computer education. It adds comment on the “glocal” histories of computers, which shed light on local computer cultures and economies across the globe.

KEYWORDS:

• Microcomputer
• educational technologies
• computer education
• media pedagogy
• Switzerland

Introduction

In late 1960s Geneva, the forerunner of digital education came in a surprisingly conventional guise. A small lorry regularly ran between the Collège Calvin (CC), an upper secondary school, and the University of Geneva. It carried the pedagogically important material of punched cards with data and programs that the university’s large mainframe computer processed for Geneva’s upper secondary pupils.¹ In 1967, the city canton at the western end of Lake Geneva had started offering the first optional computer courses at the CC. To facilitate this, mathematics teacher Raymond Morel was allowed to use the CDC 3800 from Control Data Corporation of Minnesota, which the Cantonal Centre for Informatics (CCI) had acquired from the nearby European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) and installed at the local university.² Although teachers and students had to wait between five and 24 hours for the machine to process results, the CC became the local hub for early computer education in Geneva.³ Third- and fourth-grade upper secondary students from across Geneva gathered at the CC’s own data centre established in 1969 to learn how to use the command line.⁴

Before time-sharing systems became more widespread from 1970 onwards,⁵ similar shuttle buses carrying computational material might have been in use in late 1960s Fribourg, Neuchâtel or Vaud, where a small number of physics and mathematics teachers also started offering computer education.⁶ Rather than neat little gadgets, computers at the time were large sociotechnical infrastructures linking multiple workers and devices – from computer card punches and card readers to magnetic tape and line printers – to prepare information, which was processed only at the last moment by the mainframe. The financial, spatial and administrative burden these infrastructures placed on their supporting institutions meant that early educational programmes had to use the equipment that was available in their vicinity. For most schools in French-speaking Switzerland around 1970, this meant no computer education at all. The few schools that offered computer classes were usually located in a cantonal capital. There, they had access to a CDC, IBM, Norsk Data, Honeywell-Bull or Wang mainframe at the local university, a large company or in the public administration. These used the machines as computing devices, administrative tools, or both. Few physics and mathematics teachers established contact with such places and started to offer optional courses on their own initiative. They had usually encountered electronic data processing in their tertiary education, where computer education was first introduced. Thus, computer education in secondary schools of the late 1960s was contingent, rare and bottom-up; it came about only when educated teachers managed to forge alliances with well-equipped external partners and interested school administrators.⁷

At the upper secondary level, these early grassroots initiatives were followed by a nationwide standardisation of computer education. In July 1978, the IT Coordination Group of the Swiss Central Office for the Further Education of Secondary School Teachers (CPS/WBZ), an agency of the Swiss Conference of Cantonal Ministers of Education (CDIP/EDK), published its core curriculum for computer education, called 24 Hours Informatics.⁸ Based on test runs conducted between 1975 and 1978, it provided upper secondary schools with a framework for the new subject of computer education. At the lower secondary and the primary level, the impact of these bottom-up initiatives was rather different, as computer education spread almost too successfully. Whereas the upper secondary level had found a way to coordinate computer education nationally, Western Switzerland’s lower secondary and primary level were focused on three overarching coordination programmes, called CIRCE I–III (1967–1986).⁹ Establishing core curricula for all primary and lower secondary grades, computer education played no role in them. Due to effective and efficient infrastructures built by early adopters and the fact that, from a governance standpoint, computer education outside upper secondary education flew under the radar, computer education was gathering momentum throughout western Switzerland by the beginning of the 1980s. So much so, in fact, that Jura’s Education Authority cautioned that further coordination efforts must not stop “‘uncontrolled’ experiments” (“expériences ‘sauvages’”), because they supposedly produced the most innovative results.¹⁰ However, few people outside Jura shared this positive opinion of wild growth and most agreed that it needed taming.¹¹

The coordination efforts that were supposed to achieve this taming coincided with the advent of microcomputers. In Vaud and Geneva, the first microcomputers appeared in public schools around 1978, and in Jura and in Neuchâtel, around 1983/84.¹² As a consequence, schools were no longer dependent on external mainframe infrastructures. Instead, computer education could be provided within the closed setting of a single school. As a result, the “educational imaginaries” and actual possibilities of computer education changed.¹³ Thanks to Dominique Felder’s pioneering historical work on early computer education in Geneva from 1987, we know what computer education during the mainframe era was like: it focused on basic technical knowledge, programming skills and sociological critique.¹⁴ Thus, computer education equalled education about the computer. With the advent of microcomputers, however, new concepts of computer education emerged in Western Switzerland. Because they have not yet been historically studied, they are the focal point of this paper. I first investigate how these new pedagogical concepts, developed with the microcomputer in mind, (re-)imagined computer education. Second, I ask who the agents of these changes were. And finally, I analyse the political visions linked to the respective concepts. In doing so, I draw from the work of Farinaz Fassa and Felder, who both studied the introduction of computers in Vaud and Geneva, respectively.¹⁵ Expanding on their work, I develop an understanding of how microcomputers interacted with computer education in the whole of Western Switzerland.

As I argue, three major shifts in computer education unfolded in the 1980s and 1990s. (It is important to note, however, that the different paradigms of computer education did not chronologically replace each other, but overlapped and coexisted.) The first started in the early 1980s, when computer-assisted learning (CAL) gradually became widespread under the French umbrella term of informatique integrée (integrated informatics). This designated the use of microcomputers as educational media across the established school subjects. In this context, computer education came to signify education with computers, instead of about computers. This development coincided with the spread of graphical user interfaces, which made in-depth knowledge of the device and its protocols obsolete and turned the computer into a black box.¹⁶ The second shift occurred towards the mid-1980s, as office applications (text editors, graphics software, spreadsheet programs and database applications) came to dominate integrated informatics. As part of this development, a barely structured, “glocal” computer economy emerged. It linked a broad range of stakeholders, including local teachers and retailers, media pedagogues at regional research institutes and in school administrations, national school coordination bodies, and universities and technology corporations of global standing. Within this informal edtech economy, various actors negotiated how to design computer education as a form of integrated informatics in public schools. Western Switzerland proved to be particularly fertile ground for this work. The region had been a global stronghold of the watch industry and precision mechanics, but this industry was now in decline. Affected by the “deindustrialisation” of the 1970s and the accompanying economic crisis,¹⁷ industrial jobs disappeared, young people emigrated and the population aged.¹⁸ Microcomputers offered a chance to restore some form of economic strength.

In the mid-1980s, financial policy interventions at the global level led to a depreciation of the US dollar, which drastically changed the conditions of the informal edtech economy. As US computers became the only alternative in terms of price, a third shift in computer education occurred from the end of the 1980s onwards. In view of the alleged transition to a service economy, as well as the desired European integration of French-speaking Switzerland, the focus of computer education shifted to telematics. As an infrastructure and practice space for European understanding, networked microcomputers became the new frontier of computer education. This was further emphasised after a national referendum in 1992, when German- and Italian-speaking Switzerland denied French-speaking Switzerland access to the European Economic Area (EEA). Despite this lack of European integration at a political level, networked microcomputers were imagined to be a means to make it possible for the next generation of French-speaking Swiss to still grow up to be European citizens by acquiring the “future skills” and cultural knowledge to thrive in the liberalised European service economy. This networking of microcomputers ultimately led to the so-called “Netd@ys,” which were first organised in 1997 by the Swiss Centre for Information Technologies in Education (CTIE/SFIB) and telecommunications provider Swisscom. These Netd@ys aimed to connect Swiss schools to the Internet, to further strengthen the paradigm of technology-based communication. The analysis in the present article stops at the beginnings of the Internet in Swiss schools towards the end of the 1990s.

Taming “Wild Growth”

In the mainframe era, schools would actively seek out institutions with computers, but microcomputers fostered a more cautious and protectionist attitude within the education system. Western Switzerland’s commissions charged with evaluating hardware often took a critical stance towards the high-tech industry. They were aware that the school market was very attractive to industry and were wary of manufacturers’ and retailers’ promises. In its extensive report from January 1985, Jura’s Computer Group for Compulsory Education (GISO) pointed to the dangers of not keeping producers and retailers in check:

The computer industry quickly realised that the school was a prime advertising medium to reach young people. This enormous pressure forced the school authorities to address the issue immediately … to prevent [computer education] from becoming a matter for manufacturers and distributors in this area.¹⁹

To prevent this, the cantons’ commissions for computer education formed sub-commissions specifically appointed to evaluate and recommend equipment. Their focus was often on hardware because software had to be negotiated with the sub-commissions in charge of didactic concepts. Usually, these bodies would only make decisions at one school level, as was the case with Vaud’s Sub-commission for Equipment founded in December 1986 by the Commission for Computer Education in Secondary Schools.²⁰ Considering the three million Swiss francs Vaud’s State Council intended to spend, this level of scrutiny seemed warranted.²¹ In 1979, Geneva’s IT Group for Secondary Education (GIDES) founded the Sub-Commission for Micro-Systems, presided over by Raymond Morel. It, too, cautioned schools to “be wary of equipment that can be purchased cheaply in the US.”²² According to the commission, cheap prices often simply meant a lack of technical support. Far from being seduced by the tech companies, Western Switzerland’s school administrators displayed a critical attitude and considerable restraint when it came to equipping schools with microcomputers.

This not only had to do with shrewd vendors. The latter also benefited from the school administrators’ sparse computer knowledge, which sometimes led to impulsive but uninformed purchase decisions. In Geneva, Morel warned of such acquisitions by telling the story of a public administration in Vaud which bought “a micro-system which very quickly became too small, hence the subsequent purchase of a host of small ‘things’.”²³ The additional purchases, however, complicated and worsened the situation, so that the computer was out of service for three months. In an administrative department with only one computer, the financial stakes were low, but in a school, this kind of imprudent decision would have serious financial consequences. To equip schools in Fribourg with 10 microcomputers in 1986, for example, would incur costs of 70,000 Swiss francs per school, the equivalent of 108,000 US dollars today.²⁴

As such large sums of money were at stake for equipment that had not yet been tried and tested, at the beginning of the microcomputer era many schools in Western Switzerland relied on market leaders of the mainframe era with which they had conducted business before the arrival of microcomputers. In July 1982, Jura’s government decided to equip the Upper Secondary School in Porrentruy and the Upper Secondary School for Business in Delémont with a computer room each, choosing a comparatively conventional ND-100 from Norsk Data in Oslo.²⁵ This supplier was established in Western Switzerland and had maintained a branch in Lausanne since 1980. Geneva opted for Olivetti (from Ivrea, Italy, about two-and-a-half hours’ drive from Geneva), an even more traditional manufacturer founded in 1908 as a typewriter manufacturer. In 1985, Olivetti was commissioned to equip all secondary schools across the canton of Geneva with a total of 350 M24s installed in about 50 computer rooms.²⁶ IBM, the leading mainframe giant, also did not miss the opportunity to position itself in the schools of Western Switzerland. In 1985, Big Blue was chosen to replace the Norsk Data devices at the Upper Secondary School in Porrentruy. To help secure the contract, IBM had donated four IBM PCs from 1981, one IBM PC XT from 1983 and three printers.²⁷ Rather than schools having to compete for access to the sparse supply of computers at universities, public administrations and companies, computer manufacturers and retailers were now competing for school business.

At home, however, teachers did not necessarily turn to the market leaders of the mainframe era. The devices they privately owned and used became an increasingly important matter, because microcomputers had turned teachers into key multipliers. In Jura, the 1985 GISO survey of 238 teachers showed that the equipment of the upper secondary schools by Norsk Data in 1982 had been influential. The Norwegian manufacturer had seven home computers and was the second most represented in the market. Otherwise, however, the home market was shaped by companies that had not previously played a role in public institutions. Commodore was the most represented manufacturer, with 14 devices; other prominent manufacturers were Casio, Atari, Sinclair and Apple.²⁸ Thus, two different groups of manufacturers were now targeting western Swiss schools: established office equipment manufacturers were entering the market via school administrations; manufacturers specialising in affordable microcomputers for home use were targeting individual staff members. Interestingly, the latter built up leverage as school administrators themselves increasingly became home users. Thus, the GISO report concluded:

Without wishing to choose one brand over another, the Commission already has several precise data concerning the Commodore 64 and the Sinclair Spectrum. Several members of the Commission are successfully using these two types of machines, either privately or at school.²⁹

One outlier was Epsitec System SA, located in Belmont-sur-Lausanne. This was a manufacturer that appeared in Western Switzerland computer inventories but did not fit into either of the above categories. As a small local company, Epsitec could neither rely on a legacy from the mainframe era, nor could it initially rely on gaining individual influence in the home market. Its product, a microcomputer called Smaky, had its roots at École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), where Jean-Daniel Nicoud started developing microcomputers in 1974 with financial help from the Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in Massachusetts. In 1978, Epsitec launched its first marketable device. The Smaky 6 was a niche product that was too small for industrial and administrative markets, and therefore it was deliberately marketed to regional schools. Between 1979 and 1983, Epsitec sold around 450 Smaky 6 units in Western Switzerland.³⁰ What began as a transnational private–public R&D effort at EPFL and DEC was commercialised within the limited but reliable regional education market. By the mid-1980s, Epsitec was commissioned to equip schools all over French-speaking Switzerland with microcomputers and had thus become a key stakeholder in computer education.

Although school administrators, politicians and teachers complained about the shortcomings in terms of equipment coordination, in the first half of the 1980s, regulations among the three camps of providers remained lax. Instead of telling schools what to buy, sub-commissions for equipment developed basic frameworks for informed decision-making. In practice, this resulted in all three groups having a market share in western Swiss schools. In 1982, computer education in the fourth and fifth grade in Saint-Ursanne, Jura – some of the earliest in primary school – made use of affordable Sinclair Spectrums, which were part of the up-and-coming home user market.³¹ Fribourg, on the other hand, relied on pricey but IBM-compatible Olivetti M24s, especially at the higher secondary level.³² In 1983/84, Neuchâtel chose the regional Smaky for all school levels and by May 1985, Neuchâtel’s schools had purchased 150 of the 800 Smaky units ever produced.³³ The Vaudois State Council in turn decided on a 3000 Swiss franc subsidy of workstations equipped with either a Smaky or an Apple.³⁴ Despite the variety of suppliers, a trend was discernible: schools increasingly relied on devices from microcomputer specialists such as Sinclair, Apple or Epsitec instead of devices from traditional office suppliers. The location of these manufacturers was irrelevant, apart from when administrations or schools explicitly decided to support their regional manufacturer Epsitec.

This changed drastically in September 1985 when the finance ministers of the G5 (France, West Germany, the UK, Japan and the United States) signed the Plaza Accord in New York City to depreciate the US dollar. As Motorola’s annual report of 1984 argued, “U.S.-based [sic] manufacturers, notably including electronics companies,” had suffered from the rapid and perpetual appreciation of the US dollar since 1980.³⁵ Due to the currency’s strength, US manufacturers struggled to perform internationally, which became clear in regional educational settings such as Western Switzerland. Computers from the United States were facing strong competition from manufacturers from England, Italy, Norway, France and Western Switzerland. The Plaza Accord responded to the concerns of US exporters by intervening in currency markets to stop the steep rise of the dollar exchange rate. For European buyers of computer hardware, the agreement meant that products from the United States suddenly had no alternative in terms of price. In the second half of the 1980s, most western Swiss education departments thus implemented legislation in favour of US microcomputers. From 1987 onwards, Vaud relied on Commodore (Pennsylvania) and Apple (California) in kindergartens and primary schools.³⁶ In April 1987, Fribourg decided to specifically support the purchase of Macintosh Pluses with a subsidy of 50% of the retail price, which was 3995 Swiss francs for schools.³⁷ Comparable developments were seen in Geneva, which had previously worked with Olivetti. From 1988/89 onwards, lower secondary schools were equipped with a second computer room and the contract was awarded to Apple.³⁸ The Plaza Agreement had made it impossible for companies such as Epsitec to compete in their domestic market, but its impact on prices of US computers facilitated the regulation of hardware purchases. The question no longer was whether to buy an American, an English, an Italian, a Norwegian or a Swiss product; the question now was whether to choose the “Mac world” (“monde Mac”), or the “‘rivalling’ world … of PC” (“monde ‘rival’ … des PC”).³⁹

Integrated Informatics and Media Pedagogy, 1981–1989

The profound changes in school computer equipment also changed the notion of what was meant by computer education. Until the first half of the 1980s, basic technical knowledge, programming skills and sociological critique had formed the foundation of computer education in Western Switzerland. In other words, computer education was synonymous with education about the computer. The first computer educators may have wished for didactic applications (i.e. teaching with the computer), but the hardware and software of the time would not have facilitated such implementation. this changed during the 1980s as computer-assisted learning (CAL) took over under the French umbrella term of informatique intégrée (i.e. integrated informatics). Computer education went from being the domain of mathematicians and physicists to becoming part of a school’s basic media set-up and, thus, a matter increasingly discussed in media pedagogy. For these media pedagogically oriented computer educators, computer education was not about introducing a new subject enabling pupils to manipulate computers to solve complex numerical problems; instead, it was about using microcomputers as a basic educational means. Vaud’s Educational Adviser for Informatics, Alain Theilkaes, argued that computer education should thus “enable the tool [i.e. the computer] to be used appropriately,” saying, “After all, who needs to be a mechanical expert to drive a car?”⁴⁰

Theilkaes’s analogy is instructive in terms of the political visions that were associated with the different concepts of computer education. Education about the computer was characterised by an industrial logic: students trained on computers should become accustomed to the inner workings of the machine; they should learn how to operate it; and they had to develop an awareness of negative social and cultural consequences associated with computerisation. This political vision emerged against the backdrop of the “deindustrialisation” of industrial centres in the Global North during the 1970s.⁴¹ In Western Switzerland, one of these industrial centres, computers fuelled hopes of leading the region through the crisis and securing the region’s industrial future. However, the shift from education about the computer to education with the computer marked the end of this industrial vision as sociologists, politicians and publicists agreed that the industrial age was being replaced by the “post-industrial society.”⁴² As a result, students were now being re-imagined as post-industrial users.⁴³ As such, they no longer needed to know about the machine; after all, it had turned into a black box. Instead, integrated informatics taught students how to integrate the machine into everyday post-industrial life as a tool for work- and non-work-related tasks.

The two key components of integrated informatics in Western Switzerland were EAO (enseignement assisté par ordinateur; i.e. computer-assisted instruction) and UDO (utilisation didactique de l’ordinateur, i.e. didactic use of the computer). EAO had a broad meaning, as it implied the use of any kind of program and software in any subject for any task (from using a spreadsheet or a text editor to composing music and learning Latin vocabulary). UDO usually referred to the use of educational software (didacticiels) specifically designed for a single task in a single subject (e.g. calculating the toxicity of a fluid in chemistry). Educational software began to gain popularity around 1980, as so-called authoring languages (langages auteurs) allowed non-specialists such as teachers to program the software.⁴⁴ Aside from office applications, which became a basic component of integrated informatics towards the end of the 1980s, integrated informatics had a distinct techno-pedagogical framework. It consisted of a workstation with a keyboard, a screen and, sometimes, a mouse (i.e. a terminal or, from around 1980 onwards, a microcomputer). Two students used this workstation and an educational program to solve a simulated everyday problem at their own pace. Visuality, immediacy of feedback, student activation, individualisation, a connection to everyday experience and practical relevance were cited as the key advantages of integrated informatics. It thus combined constructivist pedagogy with microcomputers.⁴⁵

These expectations may have been rather high, but the reality of integrated informatics was usually less impressive. Challenges included the production or adaptation of educational software, where the situation had not changed since Petitpierre’s critique of 1981, as people were still critical of foreign educational software. Politicians and journalists warned of an “imported culture,” whereas educators pragmatically highlighted that teaching materials must be adapted to local conditions such as language and curriculum.⁴⁶ Experts like Theilkaes calculated that it would take between 50 and 100 hours of work to produce or adapt a one-hour version of educational software, which would require enthusiastic teachers to work in their free time.⁴⁷ If teachers could not address the software needs, commercial solutions had to be purchased, which led to financing problems. To circumvent these, schools discussed copying software for teaching purposes, but this exposed them to accusations of piracy from software authors and publishers.⁴⁸ Even if these essentially political problems were solved, the problem of quality remained. A report from a lower secondary school in Fribourg stated that “Most authors, publishers and users currently agree that most courseware is poor or mediocre” and that “They [i.e. educational software] arouse little interest among students.”⁴⁹ Rather than the realisation of constructivist pedagogy, cloze tests, yes/no programs and multiple-choice questionnaires offered only conventional repetition and practice, with a lack of autonomous, individualised and discovery learning. Therefore, in 1986 the Advisory Group on IT in Western Switzerland (GCMISR) reported that “the widespread use of educational software” was not currently a focus of school development.⁵⁰

Given these difficulties in integrating microcomputers into all subjects by way of educational software, the development of text editors, graphics software, spreadsheet programs and database applications was extremely welcome. From the late 1980s onwards, these four basic types of office applications quickly came to dominate the notion of (integrated) informatics. Along with this shift, students were now more and more imagined not as vague post-industrial users but as office workers in the service society. In its 1993 computer education programme for upper secondary education, Fribourg adhered to the general, constructivist goal of using computer lessons to train the “methodical mind, creativity, autonomy and perseverance.” However, when it came to developing the actual curriculum, it became clear that this primarily referred to the use of the four office applications. The first course unit (four to six lessons) was about getting to know the school computer. To achieve this, teachers were asked to use a word-processing or drawing program. The second and largest unit (14 to 20 lessons) was dedicated specifically to the four office applications. The last two units (six to 14 lessons) focused on algorithms/programs and history/social implications.⁵¹ The situation was comparable in lower secondary schools and programming lessons only remained in primary schools.⁵²

The advent of office applications meant that western Swiss schools now had to engage with a new stakeholder in the market: Microsoft. They were reluctant to do so, because Microsoft considered site licences, which were vital to schools, as “piracy.”⁵³ However, the advantages outweighed the disadvantages for four reasons. First, the new office applications prepared students for working life in the post-industrial service economy; second, they were easy to learn and therefore did not take too much time away from established, more content-based school subjects; third, they facilitated hardware standardisation, as teacher training in office applications could be reduced to Apple or IBM-compatible devices; fourth, they were pedagogically open, as, unlike educational software, they did not have to be specifically produced, adapted and purchased, but could be used by teachers according to their own and their students’ needs. By the late 1980s, the focus in western Swiss schools had thus moved from computer education to educational computers. The latter were no longer the subject but, rather, the medium of learning – just like paper, blackboards, slides, overhead projector transparencies, television and radio.

Telematics as Civic Education, 1988–1996

Although – or maybe because – the four basic office applications had just become the fulcrum of computer education in Western Switzerland, by the late 1980s discussions concerning the educational use of computers were moving in a new direction. In 1978, Simon Nora and Alain Minc had published their report to the French president, Valery Giscard d’Estaing, entitled The Computerisation of Society. They described the “increasing interconnection between computers and telecommunications,” which they termed “telematics.”⁵⁴ By the time western Swiss schools had fully implemented computer education in the form of integrated informatics, the networking of individual computers via telephone lines and modems had, technologically speaking, become commonplace. France’s telematics service Télétel, which was accessed via a terminal device called Minitel, launched in 1980 and enrolled 800,000 subscribers within only a few years thanks to households in certain regions being equipped free of charge. In West Germany, 30,000 people subscribed to Bildschirmtext in its launch year of 1983. In Switzerland, however, the Swiss Postal, Telephone and Telegraph Services’ (PTT) Videotex experienced great difficulties, because the PTT saw itself only as a network operator and thus mistakenly left the terminals and content to the free market.⁵⁵ Videotex was launched as a pilot project in 1979 and turned into a regular service in 1985. The sociologist Felder noted in 1988 that entry fees were high and the acceptance of the new technology was thus rather low.⁵⁶ By the time schools had been equipped with computer rooms or computer corners, Videotex was about to fold, with the potential waste of millions of Swiss francs of investment. Swiss schools became an area of political focus to help telematics succeed, with western Swiss schools of particular interest because of specific economic, political and educational factors.

In 1987, Neuchâtel’s IRDP noted that “several telematic networks have been created, but they are not used for educational purposes.”⁵⁷ From an educationalist’s perspective, this was incomprehensible, because communication was becoming the prominent paradigm in the school system of Western Switzerland and telematics was seen as the most cutting-edge technology to support communication. This shift towards communication was most clearly expressed in the curriculum for grades one to six, mandated in 1984 and adopted in May 1989 by the western Swiss Conference of Cantonal Ministers of Education (CDIP-SR/TI). The new curriculum was designed by the Western Switzerland Curriculum Design Group (GRAP), which was based on CIRCE I and II. It defined the educational goals for French, mathematics, second language, writing, social studies and visual arts. The GRAP particularly highlighted that it was desirable for all subjects to contribute to the communicative competences of primary school students. For example, the educational objectives in maths were designed to help pupils “understand, communicate and structure [their] thoughts”; ⁵⁸ second language teaching was aimed at “primarily oral communication skills”; ⁵⁹ French classes were encouraged to “create communication situations.”⁶⁰ For teachers like Thérèse Inglin in Perly-Certoux, Geneva, it was obvious that “communication was the important word” in the new GRAP.⁶¹

With Switzerland’s large-scale telematic project Videotex failing and communication becoming the fulcrum of western Swiss pedagogy, it seemed sensible to link the two, so that telematics could support implementation of the communication paradigm, while school pupils could, through familiarisation, become future telematics users. This goal became particularly clear in the flagship project called Telematics in Compulsory School (EDUTEX, 1989–1992).⁶² In October 1986, the IRDP had proposed a project concerning the use of telematics in schools. In January 1987, as part of the preliminary project assessment, the IRDP approached the PTT to enquire about similar projects and found there were none.⁶³ Thus, when the CDIP-SR/TI asked for a school-based telematics experiment in Western Switzerland in November 1988, the IRDP resumed its preliminary work looking for a commune willing to collaborate. The IRDP did not have to look far, as the Neuchâtel commune of Val-de-Travers had become one of Switzerland’s 12 Communication Model Communes (CMC) implemented by the PTT. In these experimental zones, the PTT used a total budget of 90 million Swiss Francs to support telecommunications projects. In 1989, the IRDP convinced Valcom, the telecommunications company responsible for the CMC Val-de-Travers, and the PTT, to support the school telematics trial. The EDUTEX experiment (supervised by Matthis Behrens, a teacher from Nyon, Vaud) was now an official sub-project of the CMC trials,⁶⁴ supported by contributions of 450,000 Swiss francs from the IRDP and 229,000 francs from the PTT.⁶⁵ Sponsorship was assumed by the CDIP-SR/TI, the Informatics Commission of Western Switzerland (CI-SR/TI) and the IRDP.

EDUTEX equipped 14 to 18 French-speaking primary and secondary school classes in Bern, Fribourg, Ticino, Valais, Neuchâtel, Jura and Geneva with the necessary technology for the integration of telematics into their classrooms. Two telephone lines were installed in each class, paid for by the CMC, and the PTT lent two Videotex terminals to each. A PC with a printer was donated by the canton or a private company and the modem and a fax were paid for by the CMC. The EDUTEX software was commissioned by the CMC from the Neuchâtel company Arcantel SA for 45,000 Swiss francs.⁶⁶ With this infrastructure in place, more than 500 pupils aged seven to 12 could communicate with each other and thus integrate telematics into their lessons in three distinct ways.⁶⁷ First, they used EDUTEX as an electronic mail system, via which students would practise a second language by writing to a pen-pal in a different linguistic region and teachers would discuss pedagogical and administrative affairs. Second, students would maintain a self-edited bulletin board. Third, as a product of interdisciplinary assignments, pupils produced EDUTEX pages, which were collected and stored in a shared database. By running these activities, EDUTEX students contributed to the general goal of the CMCs “to help the videotex system break through in Switzerland.”⁶⁸ In return, the PTT infrastructure helped schools implement their curricular foci in the classroom. The electronic mail system supposedly created “realistic written communication situations” and helped students acquire a second language. In addition, EDUTEX promoted “exchange between different cultures and regions” within Switzerland and “facilitated [both] the opening and rooting of the school in its local milieu.”⁶⁹ IRDP’s Simone Forster celebrated that “Classroom walls are crumbling.”⁷⁰

The emergence of telematic settings led to another change in computer education. Instead of just making use of the open application of office programs, computer education was now supplemented by cross-regional electronic communication. According to Benjamin Gassmann, a didactician at the University of Zurich, this was due to a simple economic fact: “If one considers the sums that are currently being invested in equipping schools with computer hardware, it is only logical to look for suitable applications for language subjects as well.”⁷¹ Although his interpretation of the recent developments in computer education was accurate, there were deeper reasons for these developments. Since the mid-1970s, the Jura Arc had suffered from the economic crisis more than any other region in Switzerland. The dominant industries of precision mechanics and watchmaking had collapsed under the pressure of structural change with emigration and an ageing population further weakening the region. While the general aim of the CMCs was to help the Videotex system become implemented in Switzerland, the CMC Val-de-Tavers specifically aimed at “increasing the attractiveness of industry, diversifying economic activity and familiarising the population with the most modern telecommunication techniques.”⁷² The CMC Val-de-Tavers thus intended to explore economic opportunities after the crisis and to turn the traditional industrial region into a main service base for so-called teleworkers. After microcomputers and office applications had laid the foundation for such a future from the mid-1980s onwards, the combination of school, second-language acquisition, (tele-)communication and computers promised the potential for further development in this direction.

This interweaving of the service sector and computer teaching via electronic communication in a foreign language paradigmatically materialised at the Second Forum for Telematics and Multimedia in Geneva, from 5 to 7 November 1992. The forum was initiated and organised by the major Swiss bank Crédit Suisse (CS),⁷³ in an attempt to popularise its telebanking as a part of the Videotex infrastructure among its customers. In order to achieve this aim, CS made the youth – i.e. future customers and users – the topic of the forum. Through the Educational Computer Centre (CIP) led by Morel, CS recruited Liliam Hurst, an employee at the CIP and English teacher at the Collège de Claparède in Geneva, an upper secondary school.⁷⁴ Hurst saw the forum as a learning opportunity for her pupils, believing that with telecommunication as a “tool of dialogue,” young people should learn “tolerance and acceptance” in the “global village.”⁷⁵ Both Hurst and the CIP could demonstrate the educational possibilities of telematics to a larger public. According to the CIP, this was necessary because the local schools were struggling with budgetary restrictions, which negatively impacted the cost-intensive learning settings using information technology. (The canton had reduced education expenditure from 26% of total expenditure to 23.5% between 1992 and 1993.)⁷⁶ The fact that a private company invited her and her students to the forum free of charge was thus very welcome. Hurst used the opportunity to organise two teleconferences with schools in Columbus, Ohio, San Francisco, California and Indian River, Florida. Using the CompuServe Information Service (CIS), whose long-distance telephone charges were paid by CompuServe, the students were able to connect to America via two terminals and a modem.⁷⁷ The audience in the auditorium of the CS Forum in Geneva followed live on the big screen as eight students per event exchanged views with their peers in the United States regarding the newly elected President Clinton, the end of the Cold War and racial tensions.⁷⁸ Despite the distant setting, the conversations in the global village were remarkably serious.

These conversations could have been even more serious if the CS Forum had occurred a month later, as there was a momentous referendum in Switzerland that starkly exposed the cultural divide between French-speaking Western Switzerland and the rest of the country. On 6 December 1992, the Swiss voted on joining the European Economic Area (EEA), a vote which to this day is considered the cornerstone of Switzerland’s European policy, which rejects EU accession and instead focuses on a so-called bilateral path. The proposal to join the EEA was rejected by a narrow margin with 50.3% “No” votes. In French-speaking Switzerland, however, the outcome of the referendum was not contentious at all – Neuchâtel, for example, returned a resounding “Yes” share of 80%.⁷⁹ German- and Italian-speaking Switzerland had thus denied the French-speaking Swiss European integration. As a result, telematics projects in schools no longer carried only pedagogical and economical connotations, they were now also imbued with overtly political messages: if Western Switzerland’s youth had been denied a political connection to Europe, technology was supposed to compensate for these political failures and build an alternative bridge to Europe.

In June 1992, this paradigm of “educating Europeans” through technology was exemplified by an international competition for telematic teaching concepts, launched by the CIP in Geneva on the initiative of the Commission EAO.⁸⁰ The “competition of scenarios” (concours de scénarios) called on participants from all over the world to develop and present concepts for telematic teaching. When the competition was announced, the issue of Europe was not part of its framing. The sponsors from the microelectronics and telecommunications industry (including AST Research from California, Bull, Industrade AG and Telecom PTT) intended to tap the school market; the CIP educators saw the competition as a cost-effective way to develop ideas for telematic learning settings. Entries were submitted in December 1992 (the month of the EEA referendum) and assessed in spring 1993, therefore by the time the competition prize was awarded, this basic framework had changed substantially. On 5 May 1992, three papers from the United States, Denmark and Israel were awarded prizes.⁸¹ In the accompanying publication’s foreword, Martine Brunschwig Graf, Western Switzerland’s Secretary of the Society for the Promotion of the Swiss Economy (a predecessor organisation of economiesuisse), made it clear how important such telematic initiatives had become since the competition was announced:

Switzerland is not part of the European Economic Area and therefore does not benefit from the advantages of the free movement of people, goods and services. However, technology can take over from politics and, in particular, offer young people the possibility of acquiring training without fear of customs or regulatory formalities.⁸²

This statement signalled that computers in the schools of Western Switzerland were no longer just the subject of computer science or media education. Rather, they were now also part of a pro-European civic education to open the door to Europe for the youth of Western Switzerland, which the adults of eastern, central and southern Switzerland had closed to them at the political level.

Conclusion

In 1996, the IRDP decided that it was time to take stock. According to the research centre, 1996 marked the 10-year anniversary of implementing computer education across the board in general education in Western Switzerland. Despite the festive occasion, the report offered mixed conclusions. Apparently, the researchers could not find “any evidence to suggest that computer education leads to a clear advance in learning or in ways of thinking.” Moreover, the new infrastructure failed to improve “communication” in and between schools, nor was it really used as “a means of discovery learning.” Computer education had thus barely been able to fulfil the reformist promises arising from the combination of computers and constructivist pedagogy. Somewhat disdainfully, the IRDP report determined that the “computer is indeed first of all useful to familiarise students with … the computer!”⁸³ Shortly before the Internet began to shape discussions concerning computer education, this meant mastering use of the computer as a mundane post-industrial working tool to be able to enter Europe’s service economy. The computer education of the 1970s (as education about the computer), however, had lost its meaning and, since its beginnings in the late 1980s, educational telematics had not been able to assert itself. What remained was simple but essential office applications.

With an issue as hotly contested as school digitalisation, it is tempting to follow the analysis from my sources to offer a similar view of today’s computer education – for example, by referring to the economically driven educational aspirations of global technology monopolists.⁸⁴ I doubt, however, that the history developed in this paper suggests such a conclusion and I would therefore like to highlight a different point. In Western Switzerland in the 1980s and 1990s, the introduction of microcomputers coincided with computer education becoming a central “trading zone” within the school system.⁸⁵ The concept of the “trading zone” was developed by Peter Galison. The historian and philosopher of science used it to explain how different sub-cultures in physics can collaborate and stabilise the overarching culture of physics despite diverging theories, instrumentation and practices of experimentation. Trading zones emerge in real places (e.g. boardrooms) or infrastructures (e.g. email) and form “a social and intellectual mortar binding together” disunified traditions within one field. The introduction of educational microcomputers saw the formation of a trading zone for disunified political, economic and pedagogical actors, which allowed them to negotiate broader political, economic, social, cultural and pedagogical issues concerning the school system in general. In their disputes over the “right” use of microcomputers in schools, these groups thus always argued about more than just computer education.

First, microcomputers stimulated debates concerning what school development means and how to conduct it in a highly federalised state.⁸⁶ Since the School Concordat of 1970, there have been increasing attempts to “harmonise” (i.e. centralise) school development. However, such efforts have often suffered from the principles of subsidiarity and federalism enshrined in the Swiss Constitution. In accordance with “school harmonisation,” computer education offered its stakeholders the opportunity to test the limits of these constitutional principles or even to undermine them. In the process, political bodies – especially commissions and research institutes – were strengthened and without these bodies school development would be unimaginable today. For future research, it would be interesting to examine whether and, if so, how these practices of school development interacted with other areas of national scope such as health or transport policy.

In addition to processes of consensus-building in school policy, the trading zone of microcomputer education elaborated and negotiated economic imaginaries of Western Switzerland. In traditional industrial circles, new technologies were regularly held responsible for the economic decline of the region. However, in the trading zone of computer education, they became a beacon of hope for a brighter future. The central argument in favour of educational microcomputers held that if children and young people in the region became familiar with new technologies, microcomputers, office applications and teleworking could allow the region to move away from its industrial heritage and overcome the challenges of “deindustrialisation” (e.g. emigration and ageing). Further research could address the question of how these economic imaginaries developed in the school system interacted with economic policy initiatives. Research could focus on the two so-called Impulse Programmes of the late 1970s and 1980s aimed at strengthening Western Switzerland as a region and microelectronics as a business sector. It is quite possible that educational technologies and computer education were important for these two initiatives and that the two initiatives became equally important for computer education. Because even if the bodies and institutes responsible for computer education were active and influential, there were major events and developments (such as the Plaza Agreement of 1985) that permanently redefined their scope of action.

Another major event was the 1992 European referendum, which brought questions of cultural identity into the focus of computer education in Western Switzerland. After the devastating outcome of the vote for Western Switzerland, it was not possible to negotiate computer education without considering Western Switzerland’s national, European and global position. As I noted with regard to Petitpierre’s critique, such cultural debates had accompanied computer education from the very beginning. However, they became the fulcrum of negotiations only when the cultural divide in Switzerland (the so-called Röstigraben) was so starkly exposed. It would thus be interesting to clarify to what extent the 1992 referendum also affected other issues of education and school development.

The fourth and final aspect of the trading zone surrounding microcomputers is pedagogy. As I have tried to show, since the advent of microcomputers, negotiations over computer education have always also been about education in general. This was certainly already the case during the mainframe era; however, there were no discussions in the strict sense of the word. Rather, authorities such as Piaget and Papert were cited by computer proponents to justify the great effort needed to provide pupils with computer education. Pedagogical experts were also called upon after the arrival of microcomputers to scientifically legitimise their special interests regarding school development. However, what seems more remarkable is the fact that media pedagogues only became interested in computer education through microcomputers. Whereas the mathematicians and physicists of the mainframe era had great reservations regarding high-tech companies, they had few regarding media pedagogues. After all, the latter promised to make computers the basis of cutting-edge education. Further research could address the extent to which integration of media pedagogy into computer education thus inadvertently weakened the core subject of computer education. For example, in 1995, with microcomputers becoming fundamental educational media, computer education was dropped from the curriculum of upper secondary schools, and it was only in 2018 that the CDIP/EDK reinstated computer education as it was taught in the 1970s into the curriculum.

This latest development is a reminder that computer education does not have a desirable and predetermined destination. It is therefore misguided to blame supposedly conservative educators and politicians for impeding technological progress towards that alleged destination. At least from a historical perspective, computer education turns out to be a trading zone within which Western Swiss networks emerged during the mainframe era of the 1970s and stabilised in the 1980s. Besides pedagogical questions, this trading zone always served the purpose of discussing political, economic, social and cultural issues under the umbrella of the school system. These negotiations constantly interacted with contingent local, regional, national, transnational and global events, developments and constellations. Therefore, it seems futile to either long for a promised land of computer education or, conversely, to fear a dark edtech dystopia. There is no need to roll over with joy in the face of edtech companies, nor is there a need to declare education lost because of them. Rather, in federal democracies it is appropriate to conceive of computer education as a trading zone with a complex history whose future is always open to debate.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Carmen Flury for carefully reading and constructively critiquing this paper’s draft. The realisation that computer education migrated from computer science to media pedagogy in the early 1980s crystallised in conversation with her. The author would also like to thank Michael Geiss for sharing his expertise on developments in computer education in Switzerland as a whole. Finally, the author would like to thank the two anonymous referees.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This research has been conducted as a part of the project Education and the European Digital Agenda: Switzerland, Germany and Sweden after 1970, supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation [No. 182217].

Notes

1. See Scheller, “L’EAO à Genève,” 36.

2. See Haury and Levrat, “Editorial.”

3. See Aebischer, “Séance du 23 octobre 1970.”

4. See Morel, “Cours de calcul éléctronique.”

5. On the history of time-sharing systems, see Rankin, A People’s History.

6. The secondary schools in Geneva, for example, switched to time-sharing on an HB-1642 from the French manufacturer Honeywell-Bull in 1970. See Scheller, “L’EAO à Genève,” 36.

7. See Felder, “La scolarisation de l’informatique,” 13–42

8. See “L’introduction de l’informatique.”

9. See Grosjean, “Coordination scolaire”; and “Bilan provisoire.”

10. “Procés-verbal no 7/1983.”

11. See Lüthi, “L’informatique dans les écoles,” 1.

12. For an overview, see Bovet et al., “Dans les cantons.”

13. Rahm, “Educational Imaginaries.”

14. See Felder, “La scolarisation de l’informatique.”

15. See Fassa, Société en mutation; Fassa, “Informatique dans l’école”; Felder, “La scolarisation.”

16. Regarding the history of the user, see Stadler, “Der Geist des Users.”

17. See Vorschläge zur wirtschaftlichen; Tanner, Geschichte Der Schweiz 415–20.

18. See Donzé, History of the Swiss Watch Industry, chapter 4.

19. “Informatique et scolarité.”

20. See Amiguet, “Note à M. Daniel Reymond.”

21. See Taillefert, “Question Jacques-André Taillefert.”

22. Renaud, “Sous-commission”

23. Messeiller, “Procès-verbal no 62.”

24. See “Extrait du message du Conseil.”

25. See Widmer, “Lycée cantonal de Porrentruy,” 1982, 107; Widmer, “Lycée Cantonal de Porrentruy,” 725.

26. See Jeanmonod, “Un ordinateur à l’école.”

27. See Bédat, “Lycée Cantonal de Porrentruy.”

28. See “Informatique et scolarité,” 9.

29. Ibid., 26.

30. See Nicoud, “Développements d’ordinateurs et de périphériques à l’EPFL, 1965–2000,” Smaky.ch (blog), http://www.smaky.ch/theme.php?id=lami (accessed May 12, 2022).

31. See “Informatique et scolarité,” 13.

32. See “Ecoles secondaires du degre.”

33. See “EPSITEC-system SA à M. le.”

34. See “Introduction de l’informatique.”

35. Annual Report 1984.

36. See Pierre, “Aux municipalités du canton.”

37. See “Conseil d’État du canton.”

38. Louis, “Le Service informatique.”

39. Ibid., 13.

40. Theilkaes, “Informatique et enseignement.”

41. See Doering-Manteuffel and Raphael, Nach dem Boom; Raphael, Jenseits von Kohle und Stahl.

42. Bell, The Coming of Post-Industrial.

43. On the emergence of the post-industrial user in general, see Stadler, “Man Not a Machine,” 73–100.

44. See Scheller, “L’EAO à Genève,” 37.

45. See Bachmann, “Vous avez dit.”

46. See “École et informatique.”

47. See Theilkaes, “Informatique et enseignement”; Staeger, “Participation à la conférence.”

48. See Armici, “Le piratage du logiciel.”

49. “PV de la rencontre des délégués des écoles.”

50. “Rapport sur la formation.”

51. See “Programme d’informatique.”

52. See “Informatique dans les écoles.”

53. “Document interne. Conférence des directeurs.”

54. Nora and Minc, L’Informatisation de la société, 11.

55. See Thanei, “Videotex.”

56. See Felder, “Séminaire de la commission EAO.”

57. “Informatique à l’école obligatoire.”

58. “Objectifs de l’enseignement primaire.”

59. Ibid., 9.

60. Ibid., 2.

61. “Communication télématique à l’école.”

62. For detailed information on the project, see http://www.skbf-csre.ch/bildungsforschung/datenbank/projektdetail/?no_cache=1&_id=204744&ref=institution.

63. See “Communication télématique à l’école,” 3.

64. Ibid., 4.

65. See http://www.skbf-csre.ch/bildungsforschung/datenbank/projektdetail/?no_cache=1&_815id=204744&ref=institution.

66. See “Communication télématique à l’école,”, 11.

67. See Forster,“Et si célestin freinent revenait.”

68. http://www.skbf-csre.ch/bildungsforschung/datenbank/projektdetail/?no_cache=1&_id=204,744&ref=institution.

69. “Communication télématique à l’école,” 9.

70. Forster, “Et si célestin freinent revenait,” 26.

71. Gassmann, “Ein Fenster zur fremdsprachlichen.”

72. Tamool-Bourquin, “Pionnier pour ses autoroutes.”

73. See Hurst, “Nov 5 Conférence.”

74. See La Culture Prend le Maquis.

75. Hurst, “Nov 5 Conférence.”

76. See La Culture Prend le Maquis, 6.

77. See Hurst, “Nov 5 Conférence.”

78. See La Culture Prend le Maquis, 5, 10, 11.

79. See Tanner, Geschichte der Schweiz im 20. Jahrhundert, 500.

80. de Puymège, “Former des Européens.”

81. See Télématique Pédagogique, 18–19.

82. Ibid., 5.

83. Blanchet et al., Informatique scolaire, 36

84. See, for example, Ball, Global Education Inc.; Selwyn, Education in a Digital World; Williamson, “New Power Networks.”

85. Galison, “Trading Zone,” 137–60.

86. For more on the role of “trading zones” of digitalisation under federalist conditions, see Gugerli and Wichum, “Supercomputing and the Emergence.”