I think you've very nearly hit the nail on the head there. To be on target, you should have said it is clear that schools should teach conceptual computer skills rather than application specific ones.
This is true for any number of reasons, including the vocational:
(i) By teaching a specific application, you decrease the student's employability, as even 90% market penetration leaves 10% of employers who don't use that application.
(ii) The future trend is clear, annual licencing is in for proprietary software manufacturers. This means companies using these products have a clear money-saving, competitive advantage, option of using alternative, more cost-effective applications. Companies will take this route, sooner or later. This means in the future employers will be more interested in generic software skills rather than specific; schools should be looking to the future, not the present.
You do not teach a child how to use a TI calculator, but calculators. You do not teach how to use a DeWalt drill, but an electric drill. Should I continue?
I'm saying this with 50 adult learners in the building learning *generic* office skills leading to a respected vocational qualification (CLAIT/IBT - see http://www.ocr.org.uk/schemes/it/newclait/home.htm). It works... :-)
Cheers
Chris
-----Original Message-----
From: Lincoln Peters
To: Schoolforge
Sent: 5/14/02 6:03 PM
Subject: Re: [school-discuss] Re: [seul-edu] Another threat
Could you argue that the school should teach students how to think as a
computer user, rather than how to use any specific application? I've
never seen a curriculum designed for this, but it should be possible.
For example, if a class is meant to teach word processing, wouldn't it
make the most sense if the class taught the concepts behind word
processing so that a student could then figure out how to use them in
virtually any word processor?
On Tue, 2002-05-14 at 05:45, Ed Lawson wrote:
> On Mon, 13 May 2002 14:14:50 -0700
> "Kevin Stiles" <kstiles@pasco.wednet.edu> wrote:
>
> > With this in place it will be extremely difficult for any
> > alternative software to get into our schools.
>
> I could not tell from the sites what was being required, but it did
> mention other Office Suites such as those of Word Perfect and Lotus.
>
> Nevertheless, the purpose of many classes in high school business
> departments is to prepare students to work in the exisitng office
> environment by training them to use specific tools which are found
> there. Until that changes it is unlikely anyone is going to train
> them on Open Office or whatever. It might be a more realistic goal
> to get schools to use AbiWord or Open Office in the lower grades
> where the instruction should be on concepts, etc. as opposed to
> teaching tools.
>
> Ed Lawson
>
>
>