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Basic technology skills easily transfer. All office software is similar, it does not matter what you learn. And even more important than learning this or that o

Basic technology skills easily transfer. All office software is similar, it does not matter what you learn. And even more important than learning this or that office package are fundamental skills about knowing the basics of what a computer is, how it works and what software is and what it can do. What german schools need is technically competent people who are able to teach their students actually relevant information. The problem is that it is quite hard to find people who are technically competent and able/willing to teach. (This is somewhat of a structural problem, due to how the teaching profession is set up.) The best part of my IT school education (in Germany) was when my school hired a professional software developer who taught programming for a semester. The worst part about it was that half the class clearly didn't care.

II2II 4y ago
> Basic technology skills easily transfer. All office software is similar, it does not matter what you learn. I had the benefit of being taught how to use spreadsheets. Not Excel. Not even 1-2-3. I also had the benefit of being taught how to use word processors. Not Word. Not even WordPerfect. The teacher understood that transferable skills had to be taught since they knew the product we were learning with would never be used in the workplace. My mother was taking similar courses around the same time, only they were geared towards the workplace. She was provided with three books over an inch thick that walked the students through a particular product. One set of books for Word, then another set of books for WordPerfect. These courses didn't treat skills as transferable, and I'm sure a lot of students suffered because of that approach since I have seen many people freeze up or complain when presented with a product they weren't taught.
donmcronald 4y ago
> Basic technology skills easily transfer. All office software is similar, it does not matter what you learn. And even more important than learning this or that office package are fundamental skills about knowing the basics of what a computer is, how it works and what software is and what it can do. Exactly. The big problem with the current status quo is that kids are being taught that SaaS is how everything should work. You log in to your apps, save your data in “the cloud”, and pay forever. By the time they finish school many don’t even know how to use a local file system.

II2II 4y ago

> Basic technology skills easily transfer. All office software is similar, it does not matter what you learn. I had the benefit of being taught how to use spreadsheets. Not Excel. Not even 1-2-3. I also had the benefit of being taught how to use word processors. Not Word. Not even WordPerfect. The teacher understood that transferable skills had to be taught since they knew the product we were learning with would never be used in the workplace. My mother was taking similar courses around the same time, only they were geared towards the workplace. She was provided with three books over an inch thick that walked the students through a particular product. One set of books for Word, then another set of books for WordPerfect. These courses didn't treat skills as transferable, and I'm sure a lot of students suffered because of that approach since I have seen many people freeze up or complain when presented with a product they weren't taught.

donmcronald 4y ago

> Basic technology skills easily transfer. All office software is similar, it does not matter what you learn. And even more important than learning this or that office package are fundamental skills about knowing the basics of what a computer is, how it works and what software is and what it can do. Exactly. The big problem with the current status quo is that kids are being taught that SaaS is how everything should work. You log in to your apps, save your data in “the cloud”, and pay forever. By the time they finish school many don’t even know how to use a local file system.