> I was once a teacher but I am now on the private side of the education
> technology business. As such, my perspective on this evolving topic is
> largely informed by what I see as an potential employer and someone deepl=
y
> involved in the technology/software business.
>
> Bill makes some great points...
>
> My test of computer-literacy has little to do with what 'programs' people
> know. R=E9sum=E9s that list specific word-processing program skills (e.g.=
Expert
> in Word, Excel...) actually suggest something negative than positive. Fr=
om
> my perspective, it is better to expose students to patterns-of-use then t=
o
> application-skills; that one is an expert in MS Word but untrained in OO
> Writer or Google Docs or The Next Greatest Word Processor has very little
> relevance on this side of the industry...
Well, yes and no. It all depends on the industry and the job. For example,
our church office is an MS Office shop, and a new secretary who applies
without having either demonstrated skills in Office, *or* a demonstrated
desire to learn new stuff, is not a likely candidate for the job. We alread=
y
have a number of people who cut their teeth on WordPerfect and a dragging
their feet when it comes to adapting to regular and *good* use of Office
that we don't need another "Word trainee" on our hands. This became
particularly important when our pastor was working on his dissertation and
the software and format required by the seminary was Word. No one on the
church office staff had the experience with Word to be able to figure out
why certain flaky things were happening. Sure, they could *try* to look it
up, but an intermediate familiarity with the most popular word processing
program would've been great, and saved me numerous trips to church to try t=
o
figure things out and numerous hours examining an emailed file while
listening to a description of the problem over the phone. Sometimes you jus=
t
need an expert in *that* tool.
Granted, had any of these people been motivated to dig deeper into the
workings of Word despite their WordPerfect upbringings, they might not have
needed to call me as often. But the simple fact of the matter is that they
had other things to do besides become experts on another word processing
program. Especially if the dissertation called for features that they had
never used or cared about before.
And off the topic of the dissertation (and I have my issues with
institutions that expect the candidates to do all the DTP stuff as well as
the research and writing), even such "simple" things as the format for the
weekly bulletin can be a battle to try to explain to a person who doesn't
understand some of the more advanced features in word such as custom styles=
,
multiple sections, and facing margins. Having someone who already knows Wor=
d
really does make the training that much easier.
On the other hand the right person can learn any new program in a certain
category once they've learned the features of one. But this isn't everyone.
It's been part of my job as a computer professional for 20 years to learn
Xedit, Kedit, XyWrite, WordPerfect, MacWrite, WriteNow, Word, etc, and to
have an idea of what menu this particular developer might have put this
command under, and what they might've called it. But we shouldn't expect
everyone to be geeks with the time to learn three different operating
systems and their applications well. Most of us will never be in situations
where we have to be able to do that, and those few who will, will be
extremely well-paid. When I was in Computing Services at Syracuse
University, we often talked about serving the 95/95 user - that is what 95%
of the users need to do 95% of the time. If 95% of the users are using 25%
of the features of Word 95% of the time, then maybe that's what I should
teach. There is something to be said for teaching someone how to use one
tool *well* before having them try another similar one.
On the other hand though, I would love to be able to have the kids work in
two different word processing programs, move the files back and forth, and
learn how to figure out what menu the text wrapping command might be under
in FredWriter as opposed to Word. But there comes a point where teaching
them how to use the tools as a "general concept" takes away from them
learning how to use a specific tool to get the job at hand done well and
quickly. Perhaps I'll experiment with that a little this year as I try to
get all my students to sign up for Gmail accounts, and have them play aroun=
d
with Google Docs.
There's more I could say, but I think I've gone on long enough, and my 6yo
daughter wants a bowl of cereal.
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