Saturday, February 14, 2009

Re: 21st Century Computer Skills

On Fri, Feb 13, 2009 at 11:21 PM, Greg Kearney <kearney@tribcsp.com> wrote:

> The problem as I see it is we are not teaching concepts, how and when to
> use headers and footers, how to use footnote and endnotes and so on we are
> teaching Microsoft Word, or OpenOffice or what have you. We are teaching
> people to be what I call "5 step computer users"
>
> You have all encountered these users, they are the ones with the five steps
> written out on sticky notes and stuck to the monitors of their computers. If
> the computer of program ever does anything unexpected or if they ever need
> to do something outside the 5 steps they are lost.


But Greg, we are *all* five step users in some field or another. We can't
all be experts in everything. I know that every time we switch from standard
to daylight time, and vice versa, I'm out there in our two cars with my
little card detailing the steps it takes to reset the time on the clocks. I
know it can be done, but not only is it something I only have to do twice a
year, but the steps are so different in each car (and sometimes
counter-intuitive) that it's not worth wasting valuable brain space for.

And again, not everyone needs to be an expert. I consider myself to be
fairly adept at computers, but when mine does something outside of what I
know how to deal with, or can easily find online, you can bet that I'm at
the Apple Store letting *them* deal with it.

My wife is one of your much-maligned five step users when it comes to our
home computer. If it's something she doesn't do regularly in Word, I get
called to the study. When I finally decided it was time for her to switch
from using Eudora for email to Gmail, I had to *teach* her how to use it.
However, she's a nurse, and she uses technology every night that I'd be
dangerous around, even with the five steps written down on a sticky note.
She doesn't need to know what I know about Word or Gmail, and I surely don't
need to know what she knows about the technology she uses on the floor of
the hospital. If those five steps you have written down (or memorized) get
you through 95% of what you need to do 95% of the time, then that's pretty
good. We need to remember that we're trying to teach students to be
effective *users* of this technology, and not necessarily the future geeks
of America.

As far as teaching how to use Word Processing Program X rather than general
concepts goes, isn't it easier to teach the general concepts in Program X
and then say "other programs have these features too, just packaged
differently, and you'll have to know how to look for them"? Once my wife,
the five step user, had 10 years of email with Eudora under her belt,
learning how to use Mail2Web, and then Gmail, was easy. But she needed to
have time with one particular program to learn the concepts and *use them on
a regular basis*. Saying "Today we're using Eudora, tomorrow we're using
Elm, and on Wednesday we're using Gmail" is often confusing for
first-timers.

I'd love to get a little time in the English and History classes to teach
about how to use headers and footers *in context*. The problem is that many
of those teachers don't want to give up valuable time teaching about the
Treaty of Versailles or iambic pentameter for me to come in to show their
students something they assume that they've already gotten from me. Not to
mention the fact that there's not enough of me to go around to every section
of every class to do that.

Instead, what I end up with, and have hoped worked, is getting them in a
basic computer skills class, and using the time devoted to word processing
to show them some of what I think are the most important document formatting
skills (using Word, because it's cross-platform). You might mock this method
as giving them "five steps about five things" or you might see this as
giving them the foundation to explore beyond the five things. Some kids will
explore beyond this, some will ask if there's an easier way to do this, and
I'll introduce them individually to styles. On the other hand, when I try to
introduce styles to a class, most of them will yawn, not realizing what a
great tool I'm trying to show them.

I knew of a school that prided itself on the excellent college preparation
> it gave its students. Yet its technology courses were little more than
> teaching the students to be secretaries. They were fine so long as they
> never had to encounter a new program, or, heavens forbid, an operating
> system other than Windows. They were training up 5 step computer users, Just
> like all the teachers and administrators.


But in many cases that kind of computer training is just what they need in
order to get through the work of writing papers in college. You may use the
term "secretary" pejoratively, who wouln't like a good secretary, who was
totally knowledgable in how to format their documents, to type their papers
for them? I made pretty good money as a grad student being the "secretary"
for others precisely because I knew my way around XyWrite on the IBM-PC. Not
every student needs to know UNIX or Java in order to be successful. You
don't need to know how to take a car apart and put it back together in order
to be a good driver or navigator. The five step user in X could turn out to
be the expert in Y, precisely because the time they didn't have to spend
learning all of the ins and outs of X allowed them to devote more time to Y.

I don't pretend that my non-programming classes are anything more than
glorified typing class. But I still maintain that learning word processing
and effective document formatting are important skills, even if they are
"secretarial," and even if most users only know them at the five step level.

--
keg

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Keith E Gatling - Computer Instructor
Manlius Pebble Hill School
5300 Jamesville Rd
DeWitt, NY 13214
315.446.2452
http://www.gatling.us/keith

Some teachers teach subjects. Others teach students.
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