I concur. Last semester I decided to teach my high school students basic numerical analysis skills using 3 different products, Google Spreadsheets, MS-Excel, and OO-Calc. I made this decision one week before the start of the semester. It was logistically difficult, but enlightening. As a result of this experiment, I've started to redefine my measure of success. I'll consider my job well done when, for a final exam for a software applications class, I can sit a student down in front of a computer with a piece of software that they've never seen before in a chosen category, show them a hardcopy or PDF version of the finished product, and tell them they've got an hour, after which time they nonchalantly inform me that they think they figured out most of it and that it's in their directory on the lab server. Otherwise, what am I really doing as a teacher? I might as well just go back to industry where I spent 20 years and make a heck of a lot more money. When you learn how to use a second spreadsheet application, a second foreign language or second programming language, you can now distill the common elements and understand the differences. (I've heard this also applies to second wives and girlfriends)
If I haven't given my students basic conceptual models of common categories of software and taught them how to leverage online help and web resources to learn how to use a particular application's user interface to achieve a given task, then in some ways I've fallen short of my ultimate goal as a teacher. Word processors implement a set of functions across a variety of object types (e.g. characters, words, lines, paragraphs, pages, sections/chapters, documents, headers and footers, foot notes and end notes, table of contents, images, embedded objects, etc.) Some of these functions are orthogonal and can applied to almost, if not all, types of objects (e.g. cut, copy, paste, delete, insert, format) while others are specific to smaller sets of object types. The same goes for all categories of software whether it's for spreadsheets, presentations, bitmap graphics, CAD, music composition, or programming environments.
Teaching rote memorization of menus, tabbed dialog boxes and toolbars can develop practical and marketable skills, but doesn't that flattened approach, in of itself, unwittingly undermine the development of a young person who will be able to readily adapt to a wide variety of challenges and opportunities in the workplace? It's true that if you're trying to crank out a thesis or produce a marketing proposal with a looming deadline, you should focus your creativity on your subject matter instead of your word processor. This is a valuable lesson on its own.
Teaching is a fundamentally different activity in that you're nurturing the development of higher-level skills that can be applied to a wide variety of settings in the future, rather than the immediate present. It's also useful to teach a student to know that when time is of the essence, use the most efficient tool that meets your needs amongst the alternatives at your disposal, and sometimes it's your intellect, a pencil and a piece of paper.
Slashdot Mirror
I concur. Last semester I decided to teach my high school students basic numerical analysis skills using 3 different products, Google Spreadsheets, MS-Excel, and OO-Calc. I made this decision one week before the start of the semester. It was logistically difficult, but enlightening. As a result of this experiment, I've started to redefine my measure of success. I'll consider my job well done when, for a final exam for a software applications class, I can sit a student down in front of a computer with a piece of software that they've never seen before in a chosen category, show them a hardcopy or PDF version of the finished product, and tell them they've got an hour, after which time they nonchalantly inform me that they think they figured out most of it and that it's in their directory on the lab server. Otherwise, what am I really doing as a teacher? I might as well just go back to industry where I spent 20 years and make a heck of a lot more money. When you learn how to use a second spreadsheet application, a second foreign language or second programming language, you can now distill the common elements and understand the differences. (I've heard this also applies to second wives and girlfriends)
If I haven't given my students basic conceptual models of common categories of software and taught them how to leverage online help and web resources to learn how to use a particular application's user interface to achieve a given task, then in some ways I've fallen short of my ultimate goal as a teacher. Word processors implement a set of functions across a variety of object types (e.g. characters, words, lines, paragraphs, pages, sections/chapters, documents, headers and footers, foot notes and end notes, table of contents, images, embedded objects, etc.) Some of these functions are orthogonal and can applied to almost, if not all, types of objects (e.g. cut, copy, paste, delete, insert, format) while others are specific to smaller sets of object types. The same goes for all categories of software whether it's for spreadsheets, presentations, bitmap graphics, CAD, music composition, or programming environments.
Teaching rote memorization of menus, tabbed dialog boxes and toolbars can develop practical and marketable skills, but doesn't that flattened approach, in of itself, unwittingly undermine the development of a young person who will be able to readily adapt to a wide variety of challenges and opportunities in the workplace? It's true that if you're trying to crank out a thesis or produce a marketing proposal with a looming deadline, you should focus your creativity on your subject matter instead of your word processor. This is a valuable lesson on its own.
Teaching is a fundamentally different activity in that you're nurturing the development of higher-level skills that can be applied to a wide variety of settings in the future, rather than the immediate present. It's also useful to teach a student to know that when time is of the essence, use the most efficient tool that meets your needs amongst the alternatives at your disposal, and sometimes it's your intellect, a pencil and a piece of paper.
- John
p.s. Please excuse the rambling run-on sentences.