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? Have a question for Slashdot's readers? Take a look at other recent questions first to see if someone else has had a similar question. And if not, ask away! The more details and context you include, the more likely your question will be selected.

Comments

Cursive

[TsuruchiBrian]

They need to be able to do that kind of writing where the letters are all jumbled together and are indecipherable.

Re:Cursive

[kitty80]

This may be funny, but see also the /. news earlier this day: /./microsoft-to-teachers-using-pens-and-paper-not-fair-to-students

Cursive does teach motor skills in your hands, eye-to-hand coordination etc. And writing is still a basic skill that's needed in every job that requires discussing complex ideas with others.

On OP's question "What do students today realistically have to know to be successful in school?" I would say that the skills I see lacking are reading, writing and basic math. Especially the first one will get you anywhere you want...

None.

[BarbaraHudson]

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."

Re:None.

[CastrTroy]

Very much agree. When I went to school, it was all WordPerfect and Quattro Pro. For programming we did QBasic and HTML/Javascript. But it was using Netscape Navigator where people frequently used frames and document.layers. I basically had to forget a whole bunch of stuff to be able to relearn the current way to do things. I was lucky in the sense that the teachers at my highschool taught us how to figure out how to do stuff on our own by telling us to read the documentation or search around the menus to find the functionality we needed. Whatever they learn will be wrong by the time they get out into the work force. The best you can do is try to teach them how to figure things out for themselves.

Typing

[Nukenbar]

Please teach all kids how to type at least 70-80 wpm. It is a skill they will use forever.

Re:Typing

[CastrTroy]

I don't think a mind meld with computers will even be the desired input method ever. The QWERTY layout has been around for 140 years. I don't think there's any reason for it to change. There are other input methods, but nothing that matches the speed and consistency of a skilled typist. Remember, the keyboard is not simply a tool for entering English words. It let's us communicate all types of information with the computer. Simple key combinations can be used to express many different things to the computer. Also, I can type while looking out the window at the trees blowing in the wind and still get the correct output to the computer. I think that a computer trying to read our brain signals would get very confused with all the "noise" in our heads. They have enough trouble just trying to get speech recognition working in a quiet room.

The basics

[ericbrow]

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.

Two Word "Critical Thinking"

[Anonymous Coward]

They can figure out the rest.

Social Skills, Competition skills

[Rinikusu]

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.

Re:Social Skills, Competition skills

[__aabppq7737]

I'm a 15-year-old programmer and learned how to fit in yesterday. So true.

Need?

[TemporalBeing]

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.