Knowing Your Way Around Electronically
Our students are entering a world in which 60% of the jobs will require technological competency.(1)
The U.S. Department of Labor predicts that high-skill and high-technology producing sectors will account for almost all of the job growth through the year 2005.(2)
In a recent article, McCunne refers to two levels of technology knowledge: basic and strategic. The first and basic level is "the nuts-and-bolts stuff that just about every employee must possess:" ability to use everyday technology tools such as corporate email systems, word processing programs, spreadsheet applications, Internet browsers, desktop publishing software, computerized presentation tools, and legacy databases.(3) These are all, now, very basic productivity tools.
The next level is strategic technology knowledge -- for example, understanding how to use decision support software; being able to know and judge how technology can make your company more efficient and more competitive.
Employees these days are expected to have basic levels of skills, and, in general, to know their way around electronically. These are assumptions in the world of work these days. Mastery of basic information technology and information literacy skills is interwoven into job expectations -- and not only in terms of the basic productivity skills. The online environment permeates. For example, large companies use ESS (Employee Self Service) software that allows workers to check information within their Human Resources departments records (e.g., benefits and compensation data). Line workers may routinely refer to specifications and other data and information resources on their company's intranet on a regular basis.
Writing about the "ordinary worker," National Research Council's Committee on Information Technology Literacy points out that "information technology has entered their [the ordinary workers'] lives over a relatively brief period of time with little warning and essentially no formal educational preparation." The Committee's report emphasizes that fluency with information technology involves "learning sufficient foundational material to enable one to acquire new skills independently after one's formal education is complete."
In today's workplace, information technology is increasingly common. ...It is obvious that individuals who work with information and knowledge (so-called "knowledge workers") need to understand the ubiquitous office information technologies, but it is also true that few job classifications require no knowledge of information technology at all.
The Committee recommends a project-based approach to achieving fluency in information technology.(4)
(1) James L. Morrison, Technology Tools for Today's Campuses, 10 May 2000 <http://horizon.unc.edu/projects/monograph/CD/>
(2) Dale Neef, A Little Knowledge is a Dangerous Thing: Understanding Our Global Knowledge Economy, Boston: Butterworth Heinemann, 1999, p. 11.
(3) Jenny C. McCunne, "The Call for Tech-Savvy Employees," Management Review, vol. 88, no. 6, June 1999, p. 10+
(4) National Research Council. Commission on Physical Sciences, Mathematics, and Applications. Committee on Information Technology Literacy, Computer Science and Telecommunications Board. Being Fluent with Information Technology, Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1999. <http://www.nap.edu/readingroom/books/BeFIT/>
Investigating
Information Age Realities in the World of Work
