people to drive only one kind of car in only one kind of condition? So
if it should rain or snow or should other drivers on the road do
something unexpected they would be unable to cope? Would we accept
that people have stickily note in cars telling them how to start them,
how to put them into gear and how to work the accelerator.
I don't expect students to need to know how to program computers, but
I think it reasonable to expect that they can take a skill learned on
one program or platform and be able to apply it ton another. Which is
why we force our students to us a different OS every time they come
into the computer labs.
I have worked in hospitals around well educated people, some very
bight, who are incapable of dealing with even the slightest change in
a computer. If they were to approach driving, an act no less complex
if you think about it, as they do computers we would all be in danger
upon the roads.
On Feb 14, 2009, at 5:21 AM, Keith E Gatling wrote:
> 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.
>
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