PADI tables finally going away?

[DevonDiver]

At entry-level, tables practice forms the academic foundations for a conceptual understanding of how time/pressure equate to nitrogen loading and off-gasing.

These concepts can be learnt from using a computer, but not so intuitively.

 

[DA Aquamaster]

It's called an "investment". I have six student regs and somehow I was able to afford the expense.

Ummm...Pete...you also make a pretty decent living off Scubaboard so you just might have a bit more money in the overall budget for student computers than the average instructor.

It's time to for the agencies still holding on to the facade to stop deceiving themselves that inflicting tables on students gives them a better idea about on-gassing/off-gassing physiology. It's easy enough to see your gas loading on any modern dive computer and then to see the load decrease during your surface interval.

In a word - no.

It is true that the little nitrogen loading bar gives you a picture of what ever the currently controlling compartment is in the computer model - but there are normally at least 6 to 8 compartments with various half lives and there can be as many as 16.

When properly taught tables, students will get a feel for the difference betwen faster and slower compartments and the situations where one or the other becomes the controlling factor - with monumentally different impacts on how fast the little N2 loading bar on their computer is going to move up or down.

Knowing that makes diving a computer as well as planning those computer dives a lot easier and safer, even if the student never actually touches a table again.

If you really want to go down the "computer only" instruction route, you need to teach them not just how to punch buttons but rather teach an understanding of how the underlying deco model works and the implications it has for a diver. Oddly enough, tables are a great way to do that, which is why I uspect most agencies and their very experienced training directors still nsist on having tables in the course.

In the absence of teaching tables, you better teach them to dive with a redundant computer in the event one craps out on them as they will be lost balls in high grass without that knowledge when their only computer goes south.

 

[DA Aquamaster]

Using your logic, slide rules should still be taught to FULLY understand Chemistry and Physics. There's just no way that a pocket graphing calculator can help you understand equations!

Coming from a higher education background and having worked with a variety of professors, including math and physics professors, on teachning methods, I have to suggest that you are badly missing the point.

In the basic classes students almost universally do not use a graphing calculator until they have manually plotted some graphs for various types of functions and/or otherwise learned the basic comcepts about what is going on. In the advanced classes, after they have learned the basics, the computers come to streamline the math and allow them to spend more time focusing on higher level concepts that are built upon that initial foundation - but 95% of the time the students will have learned the basic concepts without the aide of a computer.

What you are suggesting is that we just skip the basic foundation of deco theory and skip right to computer use without even covering how the computer works any deeper than button pushing and knowing the menus.

 

[gypsyjim]

In our family we have all levels of diver from basic OW, up, some Nitrox, some not. I enjoy going threw the different tables and the wheel with the rest of my family as they all log dives. It refreshes my mind to all the subtle variations, and their effects.
Though I dive with the computer, I still do keep a simple log of the profile, as 2X I have had issues with my computers, and that back up logging allowed me to adjust, and keep diving.
I can't see how teaching an understanding of dive tables to entry level divers causes any harm. Compared to the 7 weeks Y training we took in the 70's, I think we have gotten to the point today where training is just a bit too quick and based on convenience and profit.
Not every diver will be buying a computer immediately, but every diver needs to understand the effects of depth, time, SI, etc, and the tables do a pretty decent job of displaying this in an easy to grasp format. My opinion, flame away.

 

[krawlings]

I think we should stop teaching math in the schools to. Every one uses calculators , so how need math ? Wrong we still need to know how to use math as we need to know how to ues the tables computers are as good as the software and we all know how many time you come across program problems . I think you have to know the basics to know how to ready and understand the data coming from your computer. This is only my opinion

 

[LiteHedded]

computers are useless trinkets.

 

[The Chairman]

Coming from a higher education background and having worked with a variety of professors, including math and physics professors, on teachning methods, I have to suggest that you are badly missing the point.

You mean the point that we should be teaching students how to use the tools they will be diving with? That's the real point. They don't/won't use tables. (Is this microphone on???)

In the basic classes students almost universally do not use a graphing calculator until they have manually plotted some graphs for various types of functions and/or otherwise learned the basic comcepts about what is going on.

Really? Both my son and daughter were encouraged to buy these items in High School. I don't consider High School to be "higher education", do you? They were encouraged to learn that TI calculator from the very start and even spent a WEEK at the beginning of the class (intro to geometry?) doing just that. I am thinking that was ninth or tenth grade at that.

the computers come to streamline the math and allow them to spend more time focusing on higher level concepts that are built upon that initial foundation -

Yahtzee, Bingo, We have a winner. EXCEPT... you don't need "math" to use tables and you don't need tables to teach the concept of tissue groups (which are not mentioned on any table) or diving physiology in general. Blue and green marbles are far more effective at teaching the concept than a dive table.

but 95% of the time the students will have learned the basic concepts without the aide of a computer.

Please tell us how you arrived at this number. Be sure to show all work in order to receive full credit. Simply pulling a number out of your butt does not count.

What you are suggesting is that we just skip the basic foundation of deco theory and skip right to computer use without even covering how the computer works any deeper than button pushing and knowing the menus.

Where did I suggest that? ALL I suggested was to teach the students how to use the right TOOL for the job. You want to teach your students how to build something with a hand operated drill. I am simply showing them how to use a motorized drill from the onset. You somehow believe that bypassing the hand operated drill will inhibit my student from learning "righty tighty, lefty loosey". Are hand drills useful? Sure, but I am not going to build a set of cabinets with one.

So... keep on teaching them how to use this tool:

While I teach them how to use this one:

​

 

[BettyRubble]

Absolutely not. I think we should require newbies to be better acquainted with the tables and theories behind them.

As a newbie, I still go back to my tables after dives and do a 'manual' profile. Then see what my computer says. I like comparing them.

And let's not even get into what happens if your computer craps out and you got no clue how to re-create even a semblance of a dive profile for the day.

 

[The Chairman]

Ummm...Pete...you also make a pretty decent living off Scubaboard so you just might have a bit more money in the overall budget for student computers than the average instructor.

Dude, I am now certain you have no grasp of reality here. I have not gotten RICH off of the dive industry by any means.

Computers are an investment. Shops, in particular, should be providing computers early on in order to boost their sales! I was at Pro Dive the other day, and they showed me the massive amount of gear they have for students and clients to try out. Everything from full face masks with coms to the latest fin was available for me to use. If you want someone to pop for a high end piece of equipment, let them try it first!

Now, I know that some of you think that dive computers, like the internet, are merely a passing fad and I would have to take exception with your myopia. They are a tool, just as tables are a tool. They are far more versatile than tables, easier to carry (especially on my BP), make allowances for discrepencies in the actual dive from the planned one and they are very reliable. I have thousands of dives, many in remote locations, and I have yet to forgo a dive due to computer issues. I have cancelled dives due to reg issues, BC issues, mask issues etc, but never due to a Dive computer malfunction. Will it happen? I am certain it will, as I dive too often to not be bitten at least once. Will it put me in DANGER? Not in the least. If it floods at depth, I simply ascend. If it doesn't start up at the beginning, I will make other arrangements. It's way too easy to find a replacement QUICKLY.

 

[gypsyjim]

So... keep on teaching them how to use this tool:

While I teach them how to use this one:

​

As a craftsman I would highly recommend that method of teaching!

We had to learn to use the most basic, primitive jewelery tools in tech school, where I honed my jewelry making skills into finer craftmanship, before we could move on to the high tech stuff, because it forced us to focus on the mechanics.
I may use a laser today, but I had to master tools like the blowpipe and alchahol lamp soldering method, hand files and bow saw before I was allowed to use a torch or flex power tools in that school!
That training took a lot longer than some of the "one week wonder" schools around then and today, but the graduates of this method of training all stood heads and shoulders above the graduates of the competing schools, that jumped straight into power tools and quick fixes.