Computers at Work, School, and Home

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Chapter 17

• Computers at Work, School, and Home

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Topics

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

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Computers and Jobs
De-skilling
Up-skilling
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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.

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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

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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.

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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
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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.

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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

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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?

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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?

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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.

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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

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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.
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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.

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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.

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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.
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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

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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
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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.

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Computers Come Home
Creativity and Leisure
Composemusic
Interactivemovies
Computergames
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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.

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