What are life long computer skills? According to usability guru Jakob Nielsen, "There is some value in teaching kids skills they can apply immediately, while they're still in school, but there's more value in teaching them deeper concepts that will benefit them forever, regardless of changes in specific applications". Included in Nielsen's suggested curriculum:
- Search strategies, like forming good queries and judging relevance of results
- Weighing the credibility of online information
- Techniques for dealing with information overload
- Writing hyperlinked online text
- Computer presentation skills (nip bad PowerPoint habits in the bud!)
- Workplace ergonomics
- Debugging -- not the heavy-duty stuff, but the logical process of tracking down errors
- Usability basics, for making informed decisions on a product's ease of use
Says Nielsen: "Teaching life-long computer skills in our schools offers further benefit in that it gives students insights that they're unlikely to pick up on their own. In contrast, as software gets steadily easier to use, anyone will be able to figure out how to draw a pie chart. People will learn how to use features on their own, when they need them -- and thus have the motivation to hunt for them. It's the conceptual things that get endlessly deferred without the impetus of formal education." For more information on theses kinds of skills see the archives of Teaching with Technology
Comments