The Best of Creative Computing Volume 1 (published 1976)
Input/Output (Letters to the Editor)
Input/Output
[Image] Comments on the birth of Creative
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Dear Editor:
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Thank you for sending us the first issue of Creative Computing. It is an
excellent beginning and I hope that you will keep up the good work.
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Edward S. Cornish, President
World Future Society
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Dear Editor:
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After reading the first issue, I am very enthusiastic about the future of
CREATIVE COMPUTING. I think it fills a gap that existed in the material
available to those interested in using computers in the classroom.
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Carolyn W. Evans
Medical College of Georgia
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Dear Editor:
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Congratulations on your charter issue. It is great to see at long last a
first-rate, exciting magazine concerning coputers in education. Promise me you
will keep up the good work.
Allan B. Ellis, President
Education Research Corp.
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Dear Editor:
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CONGRATULATIONS on the birth of Creative Computing!! The first issue is
dynamite. While its readership may account for only a small percentage of the
computing done in America, I'm convinced that it will contribute a much greater
percentage of the creativity contained therein. Creative Computing will provide
an important communication point to facilitate and magnify this contribution.
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Scott B. Guthery, President
Computer Recreations Corp.
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Dear Editor:
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Thank you for sending Creative Computing. Especially enjoyed the book review,
and the cartoons. At times the prose' could be more succinct.
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Suggest that you arrange to have Creative Computing put on board jet airliners.
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In future issues I would suggest having a contest to write programs useful in
civic work:
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1. Construct a tree based on Zip codes for car pooling or passing news by phone.
2. Sociogram to place friends in same seat on a bus.
3. Scheduling for volunteers, or shifts.
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Or, Sorting a record collection into segments the right length to fit on an
8-track cartridge.
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Maybe there is a source of bibliographic information pertaining to omputers in
education that would prepare a search for you to publish in the newsletter. It
would be nice to have a list of addresses for university newsletters in the
field of computer education.
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I hope someday you can find someone to write a story on Educational Testing
Services, Inc., a very lucrative business.
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Chris Connors
Berkeley Hts., NJ
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A dissenting vote
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Dear Editor:
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Only today did I have a chance to browse thru your Creative Computing issues.
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My special interest in “Computer Mathematics", as you know, is the use of
computer programming - in any language - to motivate students to search for
areas of pure and/or applied mathematics which can present problems which need
computers.
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95% of the issue is aimed elsewhere - so from my point of view your magazine
lacks creativity in mathematics.
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Keep me informed.
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George Grossman
Director of Mathematics
Board of Education of the City of New York
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And a reply
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Dear Editor:
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I am writing both to subscribe to Creative Computing and to reply to the letter
you printed from George
Grossman, the Director of Mathematics of the NYC Board of Education.
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Unfortunately Mr. Grossman seems to view the computer only in the light of
teaching mathematics, and
finds 95% of what is covered in Creative Computing as being aimed elsewhere.
What he is in fact saying is that out of the 100% of computer oriented material
he can only find 5% germain to his narrow circumscribed and stultified
conception of what computers are all about. This is very sad, and what is sadder
is that this man controls, at least nominally, all computer education in the
City school system.
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Fortunately his ideas are carefully ignored in the more enlightened parts of the
system. At my school our courses cover a wide range of computer science topics
from assembler language programming and system architecture, to automata,
recursion, string processing and compiler writing. Light does shine in New York.
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Creative Computing-shows potential. It seems to be floundering as to what its
direction ought to be, but if anything it errs in the direction of too many
topics, rather than, thank heaven, too few. I will read the issues that I get
and should I figure out exactly what I think needs changing, I will let you
know. Until then, good luck!
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Name withheld by request
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(George Grossman's reply) is in Vol. 2, No. I. pg. 34)
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