17th Dec 2007
Tips for Learning New Technology
How to Defang Scary Technology in the NY Times has some interesting tips for teaching and learning about technology in the workplace.
Tip #1 Learn at the conceptual level (rather than the keystroke level).
I often find that some tech people simply won’t tell me what I’m doing at a conceptual level and will pass out keystroke instructions, which are immediately helpful in my short-term goal, but don’t deepen my understanding any way. Apparently they should not be doing this (though I completely understand why they do—because we, the learners, ask for it):
Fearful learners “want to have a piece of paper that tells them what buttons to push in what order,” she said. This leaves them unprepared for errors and impasses, which are inevitable.
So try to understand what you are doing conceptually before focusing on what to press or click.
Tip #2 Create Analogies To Anne P’s credit, she always creates analogies to explain technology to me (often they involve food of some sort….), and that’s apparently ideal (the analogies, not the food):
A good teacher creates analogies that make it easier for nontechnical thinkers to understand how a system works — for example, by comparing a hard drive to a filing cabinet, and directories to the drawers of the cabinet, she said.
So try to think of analogies that make sense to you as you learn or ask for analogies, if at all possible.
Resource
How well you know me. A half hour ago I compared the odd issues with this computer I’m working on to an egg that’s been scrambled without breaking the shell; not impossible but definitely unusual.
Huh. And to think that I wasn’t sure you used food analogies….
Many technologists have known this for a long time, and indeed the conceptional level teaching is what geeks and hackers have used as the basis for their sharing of information.
It’s always been my biggest of pet peeves that our high schools teach people how to use computer programmes, like Word or Excel, and never teach the concepts behind them.
A well made lab and class would contain 1/2 Windows Machines (half of which would be using the newest version of Windows, half of which an older version), 1/4 Macs, and 1/4 some Linux/Unix system with a GUI.
Students would have to create their works, whether learning spreadsheets or anything else, on whatever computer they were at, after the lectures go over the concepts behind what’s going on.
But I’m just the Geek, and like red headed bastard step children, managers and administrators never want to hear from us, and like us locked up in the cages with the network switches and servers.
It’s funny, Donald, because it’s really basic educational theory about how we learn, but people love those 1, 2, 3, 4 lists of what to click, just like they like their textbooks written that way…pity. I think your class idea is great.
One of my pet peeves is that our educational system relies so heavily on one-size-fits-all-approaches when truly successful educational strategies
synthesize a variety of disciplines to make learning applicable to the student.
And this goes for teaching people about technology as well as any other subject.
I agree with Kevin 100% about our education system, and teaching technology. The first thing I learned about teaching: different people learn in different ways.
Any article, discussion, or concept that tries to teach people by using any method is bound to fail some people, because they do not learn that way.
Technology is no different. I agree that many people would learn better if they understood all the concepts. But at the same time, many people would be confused / overwhelmed by the concept, so teaching them the actual tools to do what they need to do works better.
But to use an analogy–imagine building a house. You have a guy who has never built anything, but wants to help. You need someone to hammer nails. Is it important to teach this person the concept behind hammering nails, how they hold the wood frame together, how this frame supports the walls, roof, etc. Or, is it important to teach him how to hit a nail, how to know it went into the other piece of wood, and where to hit the nails? Conceptual understanding is often over-rated…as a manager, not hiding conceptual information, but only providing enough for the person to do the job that needs to get done, is usually ideal.
In software / computers, the same logic applies. Yes, you can teach someone conceptually about all the functions in Word. You can teach mail merges, tracking changes, etc…but if all they want is to write a letter, why bother? I believe information overload is just as big a problem as not enough information–finding the right balance is the truly difficult part.