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Ask Slashdot: What Tech Skills Do HS Students Need To Know Now?
heybiff writes: During summer months I deliver brief tech workshops to high school students as part of an enrichment program. Almost all of the students are average students pulled from non-magnet comprehensive high schools throughout our city. Make no mistake — these are not the students who have a love of technology and coding; many were coerced by excited parents or guidance counselors. After doing this for almost 10 years, I have found students have become considerably more comfortable with technology, and confident in their use, especially with smartphones and tablets being ubiquitous. Unfortunately, I also see a lot of basic knowledge and tech skills all but nonexistent. Moreover, students seem unaware that the tech they use daily even has any usefulness for academic activities. So what I put to you fellow Slashdotters is: What do students today realistically have to know to be successful in school? Which tech skills are still important and necessary, and which are gone the way of the typewriter? What misconceptions or outright lies have become so ingrained in young people's use of technology that they need to be addressed? Finally, the program puts laptops in students' hands, to give them a kickstart in being successful; what skills do they need to get the most out of the new hardware they were just given?
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They need to be able to do that kind of writing where the letters are all jumbled together and are indecipherable.
Kids today know how to use today's electronic toys. There's nothing for them to learn that won't be obsolete and/or just plain wrong by the time they finish their education. And giving them laptops will NOT boost their learning rate - cut-n-paste from wikipedia or google is not "getting an education."
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Please teach all kids how to type at least 70-80 wpm. It is a skill they will use forever.
While students may "know technology" these days, I'm getting a lot of students at university that don't understand where their files go. I have students who don't know about simple keyboard shortcuts like cut, copy, and paste. I've had to give mini lessons on how to do basic formatting in Microsoft Word, and how to do simple manipulations of a spreadsheet. Learning how to code is useful, but I feel that should come after learning some very simple basics.
They can figure out the rest.
Really, the main mental skills you need in tech are pretty simple: understanding the goal/problem, breaking a problem down into steps, then putting everything together at the end.
If someone can figure out how to take a meal, make a recipe that makes the meal, then follow the recipe to make a meal, they'll be mostly fine.
A long time ago, in the days of wordperfect and wordstar, there were keyboard overlays -- plastic sheets that fit over/around the keyboard function keys, providing labeling for functionality -- maybe F7 was bold, maybe SHIFT-F7 was underline. Thankfully, after so many years, I've finally forgotten them.
Then that kind of functionality got collapsed into drop-down menus.
Then the same functionality got compressed into "ribbons".
Now, it's hidden three layers deeper.
Today's applications present a very clean interface by hiding away all of the advanced functionality that's used less than 1% of the time. The thing is, 1% can mean dozens of times a day -- if you know that it's there.
For example, want to forward an e-mail, there's a button/action for forward. But there's also "forward as attachment", somewhere.
Tech newcomers to take a new application/program/feature and explore it long enough to figure what features actually exist. Of course they'll find the BOLD button, but they may never know about the balanced columns feature.
Teach kids how to effectively use search engines and tools, for starters. The wealth of knowledge (and garbage) on the Internet requires good search skills to use it effectively. I see far too many adults, much less teenagers, who don't know how to put together searches consisting of more than a word or two. Learn the power of putting exact phrases in quotation marks, and suddenly you'll be able to narrow things down to just one or two very relevant pages when you Google for an error message. Use the * as a placeholder in a search for wildcard terms. Find social tags by putting @ in front of a name. Use minus-signs in front of words to exclude from search results, to help make them more effective. (If you're looking for information about purple rain but not a musical reference, try searching for it with -Prince.)
My 15 year old me is kicking me for saying this, but learning how to integrate into society, listening to other people's thoughts, and learning how to agree and disagree without going all Fox News screamy-shouty goes a long way. Learning to know how to build consensus or at least know when to build consensus (and when to go your own way).
Competition: learning how to win and how to lose without making a complete douche of yourself in either instance. You won't win every battle in the workplace, in your academic endeavors, in your love life; learn how to deal with it, learn how to learn from it, etc.
Learn how to set goals and how to take steps to achieve those goals.
These aren't tech specific, but I'd wager if a student can master any of these, they can do well in whatever field they wish to enter.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
That would be a useful skill that might get them a tech job.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Use of spreadsheets is an adult-level skill they will use all their lives and a non-frustrating gateway into building solutions to numerical tasks. Their concreteness makes them accessible, the rectangular-grid layout makes them clear about what is happening, and the ability to keep improving them until you get them to do what you want makes them non-frustrating. Students who have had painful and futile math-in-school experiences (usually algebra) are especially gratified to have a tool that lets them handle sets of numbers correctly.
In addition to the low threshold, there is a high ceiling. The graphing capabilities, the extensive set of built-in formulas, and the potential to have some cells control the values of other cells means that spreadsheets can make use of as much inventiveness as most people can muster. And if someone thinks of a data-based project that a spreadsheet is not a good fit for, then they can branch out into databases and programming with a good foundation in precise thinking.
Need to know? None. All critical skills remain the same - communication, writing, math.
Should know? Basic familiarity, tools, and typing so that they can use the tools available via technology when its appropriate to use, and the knowing when to and when not to use it.
Technology does not magically solve problems. If you don't know how to write, using Word or OO/LO Writer isn't going to help you and it won't necessarily make you a better writer either. It's not different than a calculator making you a better mathematician versus just helping you along - you have to know how to do the math either way and when to use which formula, something a calculator can't teach you. All these things are beyond the purview and ability of technology.
So honestly, you could remove computers, the Internet, etc from the classroom and probably be more effective in teaching the requisite skills to move through life. What technology will be used in life will change over time and teaching it in the classroom won't change that or better prepare students for what technology they will actually use in the work force and life - exception being the specific vocational training for vary specific vocations and the requisite technology associated therein, even then an automotive mechanic should be able to diagnose a vehicle without a computer, etc.
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
Three skills that will be invaluable to any HS student later in life:
(1) Good writing, i.e. being able to write well enough to communicate ideas effectively and convincingly (requires a lot of recreational reading, by the way, which doesn't seem particularly popular among the younger generation nowadays).
(2) Being able to stand up in front of an audience and give a good presentation.
(3) Knowing how to touch type.
Invaluable at age 18, and equally invaluable at age 68, no matter what direction your career leads you in.
Learning what is today's standard is fine even if 5 years from now it won't be. It plants basic principles that will assist students in learning the newer things. JS language and structure allows you to quickly jump into C, C++, C# because the base is the same.
HTML in the 90's is still valid today. The basic concept remains with added enhancements in the form of CSS, JS, Flash...
The most important thing in school is to learn how to learn. They do this by forcing students to be creative and resourceful.
We should be teaching them home economics skills like time management, how to handle money (e.g. avoiding bad debts) and things like nutrition, cooking and how to navigate the health care system. That way they will be prepared to create a healthy & stable life for themselves, no matter what career path they choose.
Beyond that, some additional logic and problem solving focused courses would be helpful. Followed by increased focus on narrative based philosophy/history/social studies and hands-on skills like arts & (metal/wood)working. Once everyone is graduating HS with a basic competency in those areas, then maybe we should find a place for some tech only skills like programming languages and methodologies.
Knowledge Brings Fear