This morning I saw on Twitter an article about the Scottish ICT curriculum and how it has been praised by Hal Abelson, who I respect greatly and I’m also reading one of his books, which quite rightly praises the approach the Scots are taking (and many sassenachs are taking as well!) to craft real-life and relevant approaches to the ICT curriculum.
The article then also quite rightly takes a boring and repetitive approach to office skills to task but I think it is missing quite an important point about ‘Office skills’. The problem with this, as I wrote in the comment underneath the piece, is that they shouldn’t be seen as ‘Office skills’ but as ‘productivity skills’ as using the term ‘Office’ instantly equates it only with what Microsoft has to offer. Pupils should be taught good productivity skills both to support their learning in other subjects but also to prepare them for tertiary education and employment.
Whether they use Microsoft Office, Google Docs, Zoho, Openoffice etc or any other productivity suite is irrelevant they must still be learning how to …
- Write a good document which is suitable for a target audience
- Create a usable and engaging slidedeck (and present with it)
- Manage and manipulate data within a spreadsheet and draw results and conclusions from it
- Store and manage data within a database and extracts information from it
- Manage communication in a professional manner through channels such as email
- Research and synthesise relevant information
Like grammar, basic algebra etc pupils should be leaving school with these skills so that employees do not have to waste time teaching them just as much as they shouldn’t be having to give remedial english and maths skills.
So the question is – how to teach it? When I see examples of schools doing fancy mobile app development projects I think to myself: are the pupils being asked to write decent technical documentation? Are they creating slidedecks to demonstrate their products as if they were seeking investment? Are they using spreadsheets or databases to track inventories and test runs? Productivity skills can still be taught but instead of being the main focus ‘This term we learn Mail Merge!’ they become a support to what is being asked of them in collaborative group work projects.
This blog post is not an attack on computing and computational thinking in the classroom. I am full supporter of the increased role of computer science in class. I just do not see this approach of ‘computing’ first, everything else ‘boring’ or second as the right approach. Productivity skills have their approach and can still be used and taught extensively and effectively in class.
Image attribution: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Microsoft_Office_2013.svg in public domain
Agree completely. It seems we’re all in agreement here.
Industry has long ago become tool agnostic when it comes to writing content, but school curriculum has not yet caught up. Most (tech) companies will allow you to bring your own device and work with wikis rather than documents and so it’s more efficient to let everyone use the content management tool they want.
Focussing on Office is very 1995 if you ask me. I think it’s important students try out different tools for writing content such as using Google Docs, markdown/wikis, paper and pen (crazy thought, I know) depending on the type of class this is taught in. It’s about being able to adapt to new technologies quickly and figuring out how to use new tools not about where the indent button is in Microsoft Word.
But this issue is really a sign of this time. What I see in my job is that education is living in 2 universes: keeping up with technology and sticking to (older) curriculum; we live in a time in which technology and rules on how to use them are changing faster than curriculum can keep up. In a company this is even tricky, but in an environment in which you want to give kids consistency in their learning as well as coherence across classes, I think teachers have a harder job now than they did perhaps 10 years ago.
What are your thoughts?
It’s a good point – we shouldn’t necessarily be wedded to any one productivity suite. I do allow my pupils chance to work on other systems other than Office if they wish and ‘occasionally’ it works
Nice to hear how it works in practice
Collaboration through electronic documentation is becoming increasingly important in industry (as, I imagine, in education) because we work with people from all over the world. IMHO Office just can’t beat tools that allow for easy collaboration like Google Docs (free) or ActiveCollab (paid).
Absolutely. For years I’ve heard teachers talking about “teaching PowerPoint”, “teaching Fireworks” and “teaching Access”. It’s an easy trap to fall into but we’re (hopefully) really teaching “how to present information in an interesting way that is appropriate for an audience”, “how to develop digital images in order to promote a product or service” and “how to store, organise and retrieve data in order to serve a purpose”. All of which can be done use a plethora of tools and strategies, the specifics of one particular software application being the least important aspect.
Agreed. It’s not about the tool, but about using it expertly. For example, I use this with Y7 when teaching the presentation unit. http://www.slideshare.net/jessedee/you-suck-at-powerpoint
Yes! This is why I take issue with teachers who say this sort of thing should be taught by other subject teachers as part of their subject because they are not going to do it in an expert way.
Nice slideshare as well!