I worked IT for two different school districts. The kids tech skills are seriously lacking.
It’s seriously basic stuff like not knowing what a url, folder, directory or path is, not knowing that files are on the computer in a folder someplace instead of in “such-and-such app”, no concept of how to even begin troubleshooting and something like a genuine fear of anything that is not an Apple interface.
The kids had windows laptops that they would use for school work but then I would find them composing everything on their iPhones only to email it to themselves and then submit it from their Windows laptops.
Things like attaching files were a real chore for people that don’t understand file systems or sizes, and it doesn’t help that many of their teachers are similarly lacking the computer skills necessary to understand where these kids are falling off.
I worked in the IT department, but I spent a lot of time talking to teachers. Several of them brought me into their classrooms to teach ‘curiosity skills’ since I think the computer can often teach you how to use it if you’re just curious enough to try.
This sounds like people raised on Apple being told to use Windows and finding work-arounds. Which, I’m sorry to say, isn’t a tech skills problem. They’ve clearly found baroque ways to use the technology and do the work based on how they originally learned to do it.
I worked in the IT department, but I spent a lot of time talking to teachers. Several of them brought me into their classrooms to teach ‘curiosity skills’ since I think the computer can often teach you how to use it if you’re just curious enough to try.
I mean, they are curious and they do know how to use their computers, at least as far as they regularly employ them. But when the purpose of a computer is to accrue and transmit text and images, that’s what you’re going to focus your skills on. I’m willing to bet many of your kids are better digital photographers and videographers than you, because they spend so much time in that space. Like, how many millennials know what a Ring Light is, compared to the GenZ/As?
But when Apple has built a device that negates the need to understand file systems and folder structures, it’s not a curiosity problem. They’re in a Walled Garden, so they’re learning how to accomplish their work within the boundaries the OS has created. Incidentally, I know plenty of Millennial-age professionals who keep all their files on their windows desktop precisely for the same reason (they don’t understand file systems and directory structures). This is a joke that goes back to the Office Space era.
But your kids don’t need to learn about computers. They need to learn about computer architecture. Or not, if they’re getting by just fine in their current ecosystem.
I worked IT for two different school districts. The kids tech skills are seriously lacking.
It’s seriously basic stuff like not knowing what a url, folder, directory or path is, not knowing that files are on the computer in a folder someplace instead of in “such-and-such app”, no concept of how to even begin troubleshooting and something like a genuine fear of anything that is not an Apple interface.
The kids had windows laptops that they would use for school work but then I would find them composing everything on their iPhones only to email it to themselves and then submit it from their Windows laptops.
Things like attaching files were a real chore for people that don’t understand file systems or sizes, and it doesn’t help that many of their teachers are similarly lacking the computer skills necessary to understand where these kids are falling off.
I worked in the IT department, but I spent a lot of time talking to teachers. Several of them brought me into their classrooms to teach ‘curiosity skills’ since I think the computer can often teach you how to use it if you’re just curious enough to try.
This sounds like people raised on Apple being told to use Windows and finding work-arounds. Which, I’m sorry to say, isn’t a tech skills problem. They’ve clearly found baroque ways to use the technology and do the work based on how they originally learned to do it.
I mean, they are curious and they do know how to use their computers, at least as far as they regularly employ them. But when the purpose of a computer is to accrue and transmit text and images, that’s what you’re going to focus your skills on. I’m willing to bet many of your kids are better digital photographers and videographers than you, because they spend so much time in that space. Like, how many millennials know what a Ring Light is, compared to the GenZ/As?
But when Apple has built a device that negates the need to understand file systems and folder structures, it’s not a curiosity problem. They’re in a Walled Garden, so they’re learning how to accomplish their work within the boundaries the OS has created. Incidentally, I know plenty of Millennial-age professionals who keep all their files on their windows desktop precisely for the same reason (they don’t understand file systems and directory structures). This is a joke that goes back to the Office Space era.
But your kids don’t need to learn about computers. They need to learn about computer architecture. Or not, if they’re getting by just fine in their current ecosystem.