Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium
MECC logo, early 1990s
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| Industry | Educational software |
|---|---|
| Successor | SoftKey |
| Founded | 1973 |
| Founder | Minnesota Legislature |
| Defunct | October 1999 |
| Headquarters | Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, United States |
| Owner | State of Minnesota |
| Website | mecc.com (Archive) |
The Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium (later Corporation), most commonly known as MECC, was an organization founded in 1973. The goal of the organization was to coordinate and provide computer services to schools in the state of Minnesota; however, its software eventually became popular in schools around the world. MECC had its headquarters in the Brookdale Corporate Center in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota.
During the 1960s, Minnesota was a center of computer technology, what one newspaper would describe 50 years later as a "Midwestern Silicon Valley". IBM, Honeywell, Control Data and other companies had facilities in the state. In 1963, their presence inspired a group of teachers at the University of Minnesota College of Education's laboratory school to introduce computers into classrooms via teleprinters and time-sharing. The group began with long-distance calls to Dartmouth College's General Electric computer to use John George Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz's new Dartmouth BASIC language, then moved to Minneapolis-based Pillsbury Company's own GE computer. In 1968, 20 Minneapolis-Saint Paul area school districts and the College of Education founded Total Information for Educational Systems (TIES) to provide time-sharing service on a HP 2000, training, and software. The presence of computer-company employees on many school boards accelerated TIES's expansion and helped make Minnesota a leader in computer-based education.
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