PROGRAMMING and RELATED TECHNOLGIES CURRICULUM (CK) - 1

1
PROGRAMMING and RELATED TECHNOLGIES CURRICULUM
(CK) - 1

• Information Technology General Overview and
  Evolution (1 of 2)
• Rapidly evolving field
• Technology evolution
• programming languages theory (70s), formal
  methodologies era
• programming productivity and prototyping
  techniques (80s) era
• client/server, distributed applications,
  re-engineering (90s) era
• Web-centric, e-commerce (00s) era

2
PROGRAMMING and RELATED TECHNOLGIES CURRICULUM
(CK) - 2

• Information Technology General Overview and
  Evolution (2 of 2)
• Application Trends
• DP -gt MIS -gt IS -gt IT -gt IC
• TPS -gt MIS (reporting) -gt DSS -gt EIS/ESS/ES
  -gtData Warehousing/Data Mining/Data Marts -gt KM
• H/W and S/W
• H/W cost dramatically dropped (lt500 PC)
• S/W lowering cost (Microsofts free era)
• S/W building - almost an assembly line approach

3
PROGRAMMING and RELATED TECHNOLGIES CURRICULUM
(CK) - 3

• Students Needs, Employers Expectations,
  University Standards (1of 6)
• Students
• Realities of the 90s
• Composition and expectation 80/20 rule
• Working adults - more stressful than ever
• Increased spoon-fed, sponge attitude
• Carnegie-Melon 1x4 formula barely a reality -
  find any reason not to put in the effort
• Get the good grade/diploma now, learn later...

4
PROGRAMMING and RELATED TECHNOLGIES CURRICULUM
(CK) - 4

• Students Needs, Employers Expectations,
  University Standards (2 of 6)
• Most of them love to complain or, perhaps Im
  too old or coming from the wrong school
• Super-sensitivity to (almost) anything again,
  perhaps Im too old or coming from the wrong
  school
• Most of time they coming with I have rights
  rather than I have obligations attitude
• Bring in industry attitude do things without
  really understand why, how, what, when, where...
• Training vs. Education unrealistic expectations

5
PROGRAMMING and RELATED TECHNOLGIES CURRICULUM
(CK) - 5

• Students Needs, Employers Expectations,
  University Standards (3 of 6)
• Personally, I noticed a continuous downhill in
  students quality over the years, across the
  board, any institution, big or small, good or bad
  (as far as academic reputation or
  competitiveness)
• Employers
• Expect (almost) immediate benefit
• Little (if any) involvement and cooperation with
  educational institutions
• As long as they pay for students tuition, they
  expect the Moon, the Sea and with all the salt
  in the sea...

6
PROGRAMMING and RELATED TECHNOLGIES CURRICULUM
(CK) - 6

• Students Needs, Employers Expectations,
  University Standards (4 of 6)
• Expect schools to provide for more than an
  education actually hands-on training
• State-of-the-art skills and knowledge
• Practical skills that can be utilized almost
  instantly
• Expect (sometimes) to solve current business
  problems with students/university help
  (resources)
• Training vs. Education again, unrealistic
  expectations

7
PROGRAMMING and RELATED TECHNOLGIES CURRICULUM
(CK) - 7

• Students Needs, Employers Expectations,
  University Standards (5 of 6)
• Whitehead College
• Accelerated program
• Maintain high standards and therefore, reputation
• Portrait itself as different than competition
• Keep pace with technology changes
• More and more customer, i.e, student-oriented
• Not in the training business, but offering
  students many helping hands

8
PROGRAMMING and RELATED TECHNOLGIES CURRICULUM
(CK) - 8

• Students Needs, Employers Expectations,
  University Standards (6 of 6)
• Textbooks, generally chosen to cover the (hot)
  topic, realities hardly considered (see below)
• Historical Overview and Evolution of Whitehead
  College Programming Courses (1 of 3)
• Similarly to most other colleges and universities
  - (a little) behind the technology curve
• Not necessarily a trend setter, rather a follower
  (?)
• Move from COBOL to VB and link to DBMS

9
PROGRAMMING and RELATED TECHNOLGIES CURRICULUM
(CK) - 9

• Historical Overview and Evolution of Whitehead
  College Programming Courses (2 of 3)
• Move toward Web programming, some ActiveX (ISYS
  317), some Web page development (ISYS 324/327)
• Slowly embracing the critical need of
  programming skills, C hardly accepted
• The gap between CS and IS - more and more felt
  students miss fundamentals
• Sequencing of courses - still an issue
• The role and content of prerequisites - still an
  issue

10
PROGRAMMING and RELATED TECHNOLGIES CURRICULUM
(CK) - 10

• Historical Overview and Evolution of Whitehead
  College Programming Courses (3 of 3)
• Length of some courses - still an issue
• Cluster mentorship - still an issue
• Emphasis on expertise of Productivity tools (MS
  Office) and computer literacy
• Increasing role of Computer Networks,
  Telecommunications, Multimedia related topics
• Some efforts to move toward OO however, still
  hard to swallow

11
PROGRAMMING and RELATED TECHNOLGIES CURRICULUM
(CK) - 11

• Information Technology Evolution vs. Future Lab
  Needs (1 of 1)
• Lab equipment - not bad but still behind the
  curve
• Consistency between various campuses, regional
  centers
• Networking capabilities lags behind the
  expectations
• Questions, Comments, Suggestions?