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Computers at Work, School, and Home

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Title: Computers at Work, School, and Home


1
Chapter 17
  • Computers at Work, School, and Home

2
Topics
  • Computers and Job Quality
  • Education in the Information Age
  • Computers Go to School
  • Computers at School Midterm Grades
  • Computers Come Home

3
Computers and Jobs
De-skilling
Up-skilling
4
Productivity and People
  • According to one study of 2,000 U.S. companies
    that implemented new office systems, at least 40
    failed to achieve their intended results. Most of
    the failures were attributed to human or
    organizational factors rather than technical
    problems.
  • Many analysts argue that the most successful
    computer systems are human-centered systems. Such
    systems are designed to retain and enhance human
    skills rather than take them away.
  • To create a human-centered system, systems
    analysts and designers must understand the work
    practices of the people wholl be using the
    system.

5
Computers and Job Quality
  • Computer monitoring--using computer technology to
    track, record, and evaluate worker performance,
    often without the knowledge of the worker.
  • Problems
  • Privacy
  • Morale
  • Devalued Skills
  • Loss of Quality

6
Computers and Job Quality
  • A typical data-entry shop might contain hundreds
    of clerks sitting at terminals in a massive,
    windowless room.
  • Workers - often minorities and almost always
    female - are paid minimum wage to do mindless
    keyboarding.
  • Many experience headaches, backaches, serious
    wrist injuries, stress, anxiety, and other health
    problems.
  • Optical character recognition and voice
    recognition technologies will enable companies to
    replace workers with machines.

7
Employment and Unemployment
My father had worked for the same firm for 12
years. They fired him. They replaced him with a
tiny gadget this big that does everything that my
father does only it does it much better. The
depressing thing is my mother ran out and bought
one. --Woody Allen
8
Employment and Unemployment
  • Because of automation the unskilled, uneducated
    worker may face a lifetime of minimum wage jobs
    or welfare.
  • Technology may be helping to create an unbalanced
    society with two classes a growing mass of poor
    uneducated people and a shrinking class of
    affluent educated people.

9
Employment and Unemployment
  • Cautiously Optimistic Forecasts
  • Technology will continue to spur economic growth
    and new jobs.
  • Economic growth may depend on whether we have a
    suitably trained workforce.
  • The demand for professionals - teachers and
    engineers is likely to rise.
  • Painful periods of adjustment may be in store for
    many factory workers, clerical workers, and other
    semiskilled and unskilled laborers

10
Employment and Unemployment
  • Will we need a New Economy?
  • Do governments have an obligation to provide
    permanent public assistance to the chronically
    unemployed?
  • Should large companies be required to give
    several months notice to workers whose jobs are
    being eliminated? Should they be required to
    retrain workers for other jobs?

11
Employment and Unemployment
  • Will we need a New Economy?
  • Should large companies be required to file
    employment impact statements before replacing
    people with machines in the same way theyre
    required to file environmental impact statements
    before implementing policies that might harm the
    environment?
  • If a worker is replaced by a robot, should the
    worker receive a share of the robots earnings
    through stocks or profit sharing?

12
Education in the Information Age
  • The American educational system was developed
    more than a century ago to teach students the
    basic facts and survival skills they would need
    for jobs in industry and agriculture. It is known
    as a factory model because it assumes
  • All students learn the same way and that all
    students should learn the same things.
  • The teachers job is to pour facts into
    students, occasionally checking the level of
    knowledge in each student.
  • Students are expected to work individually,
    absorb facts, and spend most of their time
    sitting quietly in straight rows.

13
Education in the Information Age
  • How should education provide for students in the
    information age?
  • Technological familiarity
  • Literacy
  • Mathematics
  • Culture
  • Communication
  • Learning how to learn

14
Computers Go to School
Computers Go to School
Students can prepare for standardized tests
usingInside the SAT and ACT.16
Students in this class build LEGO robots and
write LOGO programs to control them.
15
Computers Go to School
Computer-aided instruction (CAI)
  • CAI software combines tutorial material with
    drill-and-practice questions in an interactive
    format that provides instant student feedback.
  • CAI is one of the most common types of courseware
    because it is relatively easy and inexpensive to
    produce and it can be easily combined with more
    traditional educational techniques.

16
Computers Go to School
Programming Tools
  • Programming tools such as LOGO, Pascal, and Basic
    allow young students to take a more active role
    programming the computer.

17
Computers Go to School
Simulations and Games
  • Allow students to explore artificial
    environments, whether imaginary or based on
    reality.
  • Educational simulations are metaphors designed to
    focus student attention on the most important
    concepts.

Star Wars Droid works is a simulated robot
factory.
18
Computers Go to School
Distance Education
  • Distance education uses technology to extend the
    educational process beyond the walls of the
    school.

Asia Quest allowed students to communicate with a
team of scientists and explorers.
19
Computers at School Midterm Grades
  • A number of independent studies in the 90s
    confirm that information technology can improve
    education. Some of the findings are
  • Students improve problem-solving skills, outscore
    classmates, and learn more rapidly in a variety
    of subject areas and situations when using
    technology as compared to conventional methods of
    study.
  • Students find computer-based instruction to be
    more motivational, less intimidating, and easier
    to persist with than traditional instruction.

Independent research studies in the 1990s
confirm that information technology can improve
education.
20
Computers at School Midterm Grades
  • Well-designed interactive multimedia systems can
    encourage active processing and higher order
    thinking.
  • Students who create interactive multimedia
    reports often learn better than those who learn
    with more traditional methods.
  • Students can become more productive, more fluid
    writers with computers.
  • Computers can help students master the basic
    skills needed to participate and succeed in the
    workforce.
  • Positive changes occur gradually as teachers gain
    experience with the technology.
  • Technology can facilitate educational reform.

21
Computers at School Midterm Grades
  • Other findings temper - and sometimes contradict
    - these positive conclusions. Researchers have
    also found that
  • If the only thing that changes is the delivery
    medium (from traditional media to computer
    media), the advantages of technology are smallor
    nonexistent.
  • Kids and teachers forget advanced computer skills
    if they dont use them.
  • Students have unequal access to technology
    economically disadvantaged students have less
    computer access at school and at home.
  • Technology doesnt reduce teacher workloads if
    anything, it seems to make their jobs harder (of
    course, many teachers welcome the extra work
    because they believe it brings results).
  • Theres a gender gap that typically puts the
    computer room in the boys domain the gap can be
    reduced by stressing computer activities that
    involve collaboration.

22
Computers at School Midterm Grades
  • Many of the outcomes of technology-based
    education dont show up with traditional
    educational assessment methods.
  • Sending students to a computer lab for 30 minutes
    a week has little or no value. Computers are
    more effective when they are in classrooms where
    students can use them regularly.
  • Younger students may be better served by art,
    music, and shop classes than by computer classes.
    Unfortunately, these important parts of the
    curriculum are often eliminated to make room for
    computers.

23
The Classroom of Tomorrow
The Classroom of Tomorrow
  • After more than a decade of research, ACOTs
    research demonstrated that the introduction of
    technology into classrooms can significantly
    increase the potential for learning, especially
    when it is used to support collaboration,
    information access, and the expressions and
    representation of students thoughts and ideas.

Research suggests that technology can have a
positive impact on education if it is part of a
program that includes teacher training, ongoing
support, and radical restructuring of the
traditional factory model curriculum.
24
Computers Come Home
  • Business Applications at Home
  • Word processors
  • Spreadsheets
  • Database programs
  • Personal information management programs
  • Web browsers and e-mail programs
  • Accounting and tax programs

25
Computers Come Home
  • A smart card looks like a standard credit card
    but instead of a magnetic strip, it contains an
    embedded microprocessor and memory.

A Smart Card
26
Computers Come Home
  • Home Entertainment Redefined
  • Regardless of how people say they use home
    computers, surveys suggest that many people use
    them mostly to play games.
  • Education and Information
  • Home computer users use CD-ROMs to help with all
    kinds of tasks, including locating streets in
    far-off cities, planning wilderness treks, and
    learning to play the guitar.

27
Computers Come Home
Creativity and Leisure
Composemusic
Interactivemovies
Computergames
28
Rules of Thumb Green Computing
  • Buy green equipment.
  • Use a laptop.
  • Take advantage of energy-saving features.
  • Turn it off when youre away.
  • Print only once.
  • Recycle your waste products.
  • Send bits, not atoms.

29
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