As much by writing

MS Word? OpenOffice Writer? Google Apps? Can you tell?

Over the summer SUNY Delhi’s Edward Stammel, Adjunct Instructor, Business & Hospitality Division, contacted his department dean and CIS to discuss creating a new section for CITA 110, Introduction to Software Applications. Professor Stammel wrote:

The nature of Information Technology is undergoing a major revolution. The old way of doing things with corporate controlled networks running standardized (generally Microsoft based) servers, operating systems, and applications is being (and to a great extent has been) replaced by open source and server based technologies on the Internet. Consumers use whatever system they have at hand to access services provided on the web. Such technologies as google apps, open office, and android allow users to manage data through wifi and 3G networks wherever they may be.

Professor Stammel’s comments are spot on. More services are emerging that offer users broader connectivity (Internet access in class, at home, in the office, at the coffee shop),  more options (desktops, laptops, netbooks, hand helds such as Blackberries, iPhones, etc.) and greater tools for content creation (WS Office, OpenOffice, Google Apps, Zoho, etc.). Many of these, as Professor Stammel points out are not locally or centrally controlled. Therefore, the professor continues:

I am changing my course outline to make the textbook and SAM package optional. It costs an extraordinary amount of money and is, quite frankly, a lousy way to learn a subject. The SAM portion of the program is frustrating and buggy. The textbook is a “cookbook” style series of lessons with instructions like “press the enter key”. It requires no thought by the student and does not give them skills to problem solve on their own outside the given lessons.

Students will accomplish the same tasks and will acquire the same skills without the restriction of being forced to work in our labs. Much of the campus is already equipped with enough locations where students can log in and work wherever they may be. Lectures will become more of a presentation of the general aspects of the subject with a demonstration using Microsoft sometimes and other software other times. Students may bring in their own computers and accomplish the same tasks using their favorite hardware, operating system, and application. The exams will not be machine and/or application specific but will be task oriented.

I think this is fantastic. This is exactly what higher education should be providing students, rather than courses focusing on how to use Microsoft products–the Windows operating system, Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, Powerpoint)–computer applications courses should be teaching students computing concepts that would be applicable to any operating system: Macintosh, Linux, Solaris, Unix, Windows. In addition, with the growth of embedded or mobile operating systems, such as: Apple iPhone, Android, Palm,  RIM Blackberry, Symbian and Windows Mobile, as well as the multitude of graphical user interfaces available through the Linux kernel, driving all sorts of devises from cell phones to TiVo, teaching students computing concepts, not one system,  becomes vital especially as they are likely to experience all of these (and more) as they migrate across and through technologies over the course of their careers.  These concepts could be presented, like Professor Stammel  identified, across platforms and applications. For example, creating a business document that announces new business hours could be done on Windows XP using Microsoft Word, or on a Macintosh using iWorks, or Ubuntu Linux using OpenOffice, or any of the previous operating systems accessing Zoho’s online office productively suite via a web browser (Camino, Chrome, Firefox, Flock,  IE, Opera, Safari), or something radical (but not radical for long) like using gOffice on an iPhone: really any Rich Text Editor on any platform.

Recently CIS deployed a Rich Text Editor into the Uniform Course Syllabus available in our Student Information System, Banner. While the features (bold, indent, centering text, etc.) available in the editor mirrored that found in any word processor of an office productivity suite, such as Microsoft’s Word or OpenOffice’s Writer, we encountered significant support issues when the editor was introduced to the campus. Essentially, many were so accustomed to Microsoft Word that they had difficulty using the editor functionality, that is, how to bold, how to indent, how to center text, etc. because the layout of the buttons were different, the icons were different and the work flow was different. The availability of such tools is only going to increase, and in fact is the reality and opportunity of Web2.0, where interactivity and content creation expand–often through a text editor.

Unfortunately Professor Stammel’s new section was not well received and only one student signed up. I hope this does not deter him from offering the course again, and I would offer that perhaps it is his model that should be used rather than what is in place today throughout higher education’s computer literacy courses. Congratulations to the SUNY Delhi faculty and Deans for recognizing and adapting to the changing technology environment.