Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-mp689 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-16T07:24:56.267Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

University archaeological education, CD-ROMs and digital media

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Phil Perkins
Phil Perkins*
Affiliation:
Department of Classical Studies, The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA, England. p.perkins@open.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

I would like to start with the contentious assertion that there is very little special about CD-ROMs; they are little more than overgrown floppy disks with a long shelf-life, and uncertain sell-by date. A CD-ROM can contain about 650 Mb (Megabytes) of digital information, the equivalent of 450 high-density floppy disks, A CD-ROM is much more durable than a floppy disk, if kept away from small children and dogs, and is certainly more convenient to transport and handle than 450 floppy disks. A floppy disk will fade and its contents will become unreadable after about 4 or 5 years. A shiny CDROM on the other hand will last physically for at least 30 years, we are promised. Unfortunately the CD-ROM is already headed for the scrap heap of our technological past and is set to join the burins and scrapers. Yes, the Digital Versatile Disk (DVD) is coming our way. It can contain up to 17 Gb (Gigabytes) — that’s 17 with nine zeros after it, the equivalent of 11,805 floppy disks full of data. Fifteen years ago, back in 1982, a 10-Mb hard disk was considered an expensive technological marvel with more than enough capacity (equivalent to 25 of the lowercapacity, 400-Kb floppy disks of the ‘80s). Nowadays, the CD-ROM, given away on the front of glossy magazines, and costing Sop to produce, contains 65 times that amount of information. My point is that I don’t think we should become obsessed with the technology and the means of delivery of data on some kind of disk. What is far more important is what is actually on the disk — the message not the messenger.

Type
Special review section: Electronic archaeology
Information
Antiquity , Volume 71 , Issue 274 , December 1997 , pp. 1066 - 1069
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 1997

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Belcher, M., Chalmers, A. Harrison, A. & Stoddart, S. 1996. Teaching the visualisation of landscapes — approaches in computer based learning for archaeologists, in Kamermans, & Fennema, (ed.): 487>–92.Google Scholar
Boast, R.B. & Lucy, S. 1996. Teaching with objects, in Kamermans, & Fennema, (ed.): 479–86.Google Scholar
Callow, P. 1985. Bailing out the inexperienced computer user: some recurrent problems, in Webb, (ed.): 41–8.Google Scholar
Campbell, E. 1994. The development of a CAL multimedia tutorial system for archaeology undergraduate teaching, in Wilcock, J. & Lockyear, K. (ed.), Computer applications and quantitative methods in archaeology 1993: 217–20. Oxford: Tempvs Reparatvm.Google Scholar
Cheetham, P.N. & Martlew, R.D. 1995. The development and implementation of a computer-based learning package in archaeology, in Huggett, J. & Ryan, N.S. (ed.), Computer applications and quantitative methods in archaeology CAA94: 27–30. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports. International series 600.Google Scholar
Doran, J.E. 1970. Systems theory, computer simulations and archaeology, World Archaeology 1: 289–98.Google Scholar
Doran, J.E. & Hodson, F.R. 1968. A digital computer analysis of Palaeolithic flint assemblages, Nature 210: 688–9.Google Scholar
Doran, J.E. & Hodson, F.R. 1975. Mathematics and computers in archaeology. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Gardin, J.-C. 1967. Methods for the descriptive analysis of archaeological material, American Antiquity 32: 13–30.Google Scholar
Greene, K. 1996. Archaeology: an introduction. 3rd edition. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jaoul, M. & Jouanet-MENNESSIER, C. 1975. Les banques de données archéologiques et artistiques comme supports d’une pédagogie critique exposé de l’experience et de ses conséquences sur les méthodes d’enseignement, in Lecarme, O. & Lewis, R. Computers in education: proceedings of the IFIP 2nd World Conference: 579–82. Amsterdam: North-Holland.Google Scholar
Kamermans, H. & Fennema, K. (ed.). 1996. Computer applications and quantitative methods in archaeology CAA95. Leiden: University of Leiden. Analecta Praehistorica Leidensia 28.Google Scholar
Lockyear, K. & Rahtz, S.P.Q. (ed.). 1991. Computer applications and quantitative methods in archaeology 1990. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports. International series 565.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martlew, R. 1991. Every picture tells a story: ‘The Archaeology Disc’ and its implications, in Lockyear, & Rahtz, (ed.): 15—20.Google Scholar
Orton, C. 1980. Mathematics in archaeology. London: Collins.Google Scholar
Perkins, P. 1995. The development of computer assisted learning materials for archaeology and art history, Computers and the History of Art 5(2):79–91.Google Scholar
Perkins, P., Spaeth, D.A. & Trainor, R.H. 1992. Computers and the teaching of history and archaeology in higher education, Computers and Education 19(1/2): 153–62.Google Scholar
Price, D. & Gebauer, G. 1990. Adventures in Fugawiland, a computer simulation in archaeology. Version 2, Mountain View (CA): Mayfield.Google Scholar
Richards, J.D. 1985. Into the black art: achieving computer literacy in archaeology, in Webb, (ed.): 121–5.Google Scholar
Richards, J.D. & Ryan, N.S. 1985. Data processing in archaeology, Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Webb, E. (ed.). 1985. Computer applications in archaeology 1985. London: Institute of Archaeology, University of London.Google Scholar
Wheatley, D. 1991. SyGraf — resource based teaching with graphics, in Lockyear, & Rahtz, (ed.): 9–14.Google Scholar