Posted by David Christopherson on Oct 28, 2016; 3:12am
URL: https://nabble.aealearningonline.org/Topic-4-Narrative-Voice-tp3794p6089.html

I love technology! Almost every student in high school knows how to do something on computers, whether it is a laptop, desktop, tablet, or smartphone. Being a business teacher, I see students knowing how to do some of the weirdest things on their tools. But when they come to use it for a practical application that they will need to use in the workforce like using WORD or EXCEL. Most don’t know how to use it properly. They can hit the space bar to line up items in word or they use a calculator to add up columns in excel. If they are given a project to complete, they work on it until they don’t know what to do. Then most cry for help. They haven’t learned how to use the technology to solve their problems by asking questions of the technology they are using. Now some say technology isn’t an application or program, but what would technology be if there wasn’t software.

When I was a senior in high school, our school purchased a PC, a Tandy TRS80 computer.
One… for a high school population close to 300 students. The thing was:

• This was brand new technology to us… a PC (a Personal Computer).
• It was nothing like the mainframes the office used.
• Our teachers were brand new to it also.
• There wasn’t an educational curriculum for it.

Someone determined to have a test group of a lucky students, “volunteers,” to be the "guinea pigs" during the last semester of the year. I was one of them. “COOL!” or so I thought.

1. We had no book other than a basic DOS programming book.
2. We were told to design a program that could be used on the computer by other students.
3. We would be our own class!

We were on top of the world…for a while. We were to use the computer during our selected period during the day, by ourselves, no teacher, no supervision. Then we found out, the memory was a cassette tape. We had no idea what memory was, what programming was, or what software was for that matter. And we had to design a program to do something! The time it took to save our project to a cassette tape at the end of our period took forever. If it took too long, we were late for our next class, if we got done saving to early, we had wasted time at the end of our class period.

During this time, we had to determine what project to create, learn the programming language, how long it was to take us, the correct usage and sequence of the wording to make it work correctly. If something was wrong, it didn’t tell us where the problem was, we had to find it, figure out what went wrong, and correct it.

We were told that by the end of the semester, we were to have produced something that would be useful for students to use in a class. I passed, somehow.

I created a simple accounting test that tested students with basic multiple choice questions. If they choose right, it congratulated them, and they continued with the test. If they answered wrong, they had to try again, repeating the cycle until they got it right. Sound familiar? The great thing was I learned during this process was how to problem-solve.

Since then, I learned how to use applications on the computers by reading the manuals that came with the computers or asking other users questions about how to do a specific task. Then I went back to the computer to work it out. With the exceptions of some very basic computer skills and programming classes, I got by. Sure. I’m still not a programmer but I did teach myself how to use the computer applications to do the best job possible. As I learned skills and developed them, I moved on to more advanced skills because I wanted to. I wasn’t satisfied with doing OK.

Today, that could be the problem. Technology has evolved into providing too much information to help to the user. The pre-PC generation didn’t have a computer doing everything for us. We had to learn to problem-solve, for example, make sure that words were spelled properly and sentences had proper structure and flow by using our proofreading skills to check our work, not once but several times.

That word, skills, still applies. The most basic survival skill is to be problem-solver. Even though most processing programs correct most spelled words and grammar, you still need to have the skill to solve any problem, like making sure your typed work is correct in all manners: spelling, word usage, grammar, conventions. Technology is making us too reliant on it by trying to do everything for us.

We, the pre-PC generation, want and need you to be able to be self-reliant, problem-solvers, good communicators, and great team players (even if you don’t like your teammates). Because you are the ones who will be paying for our social security paychecks (I hope) and taking care of us during retirement.

Business owners tell us, future employees need the following work skills to be successful:
• Problem-solving skills
• Soft skills
With those skills as your foundation, you should be able to do anything you want. Now, my job as an educator is to not only teach business subjects but these skills also.

Thank You, Technology, for all your help!