December 4, 2008
Students know a lot about computers — but knowledge is superficial, program shows
They punch cell phones like they once played with plastic rattles. They search Google like they once searched their toyboxes.
Common wisdom says high school and college students are fearless and facile with information technology.
But how often is that true?
Teachers of FIT 100: Fluency with Information Technology say young people’s knowledge of information technology is often superficial — students understand basic computer use but seldom the whys and wherefores behind it. As a five-credit UW course, FIT is taught both at the UW and as of this quarter, three area high schools.
“We hope to make students lifelong learners — help them understand how various technologies work so they have critical thinking skills and can solve information problems themselves,” said D.A. Clements, a lecturer in the Information School. She has taught the course to 150 UW students each quarter since 2007. The course has a waiting list, and Clements is also a prime mover in rolling FIT out to about 75 students at Everett High School, Jackson High School in Mill Creek and Tahoma High School in Covington.
The effort is influenced by a National Research Council report on the need for knowledge of information technology among high school students. It’s also part of UW in the High School, a program which offers UW courses to high school students in their own classrooms. According to managers, the program includes 11 subjects and reached about 3,500 students this past year.
Crystal Hess, who teaches computer science at Tahoma High School in Covington, works with 20 sophomores, juniors and seniors who take FIT either for high school or UW credit.
The students are about three-fourths through a semester course which includes computer security, creating Web pages, transferring files with FTP, designing databases and programming with JavaScript. So that students become more savvy about information they find on the Internet, they also design a fake Web site so it looks authentic but offers bogus information.
Hess said only three of her 20 students arrived at the class with advanced computer skills. The rest knew word processing but not much more. “This class goes deeper, and every single student has learned something new. It’s opened their eyes to how much else is out there.”
Kaycie Watmore, a sophomore at Tahoma, said FIT helps her understand a bit of the computer programming her father does — “and that if one part of a program doesn’t work, the whole thing won’t work.” She’s also learned that not everything on the Internet is gospel.
When Katie Mahan, a senior, came to FIT, she understood Web searches and could create an Excel spreadsheet, but quickly learned she had much to learn, particularly about programming. Mahan laughed when asked how many of her friends know computer programming and Web site creation. She then said “Not many!”
Mahan, who may study chemical engineering in college, said she was lost at the beginning of the course but has made progress. She didn’t want to wait until college to learn basic information technology, fearing that lack of such skills might impede her studies.
Malaika Robinson, a UW junior majoring in Near Eastern Languages, took the FIT course in 2007. She didn’t want the helpless feelings that go with blind dependency on a machine that would contain a great deal of her work. “I learned how to keep bugs off, put the right software on, find new ways of storage, what to do if the machine crashes and new ways to back up the system.”
“If the device fails, I could be vulnerable,” Robinson said. “I at least want to know what’s going on.”
