Testing Kids' IT Skills

Dee Arsmith writes "Computer literate kids entering our local high school (form 4 = grade 8) are bored out of their trees by the introductory IT classes they are given. Can Slashdot readers point us to a computer based programme that would allow us to evaluate student skills at the beginning of the year so that the experienced users can be identified and channeled into more advanced courses? Currently the school uses old P100 boxes with W95. (Cybermoles are currently fighting the Forces of Darkness to introduce Linux into the school - but that is another story!) Grateful for any guidance"

The IT Industry is stuffed enough

[AnalogBoy]

The generation of highschoolers skipping college and going directly into IT has come and gone, and lets see where its left us.. I, for one, am unemployed. By the time these kids graduate high school, it seems 9 out of every 10 kids is going to be some kind of systems admin/analyst/etc. Howsabout we concentrate on improving teh quality of our education instead of the quantity? I mean, its not like the USA is exactly at the forefront of education..

Re:The IT Industry is stuffed enough

[CounterZer0]

Read the question - they aren't asking how to PREPARE kids for these jobs. They want to know how to test for skills, like a CLEP / Placement exam for comp. skills.
And besides, not everyone who recieves a computer education will be a sysadmin / analyst / CS Whatever right out of high school.

As to the topic - check out the State of Virginia's "Standards of Learning" on Technology - don't have a link handy, but I'll try to post it in a follow up.

Just how bored are they?

[bakes]

If they are a just a little bit bored, get them to write a webserver in Perl.

If they are really bored, get them to write it in Java.

If they are exceptionally bored, get them to write a Linux VM - there should be plenty of work for everyone incorporating the 'advice' that everyone seems to have on the subject.

In order to be a little bit useful - write a list of topics and get the students to rate themselves. They may not be as bright as they thought, or brighter than they thought, but you will get a good idea to start with.

Some Basic Problems:

[Zarf]

What is "Computer Literate"? How do you determine if someone is "Computer Literate"?

I'm seriously asking you seriously, not with any sarcasm. Does Computer Literate and Computer skills mean that they can make word documents? Does it mean they can use MS Outlook? (If it does, then I'm not computer literate because I've never used MS Outlook and never bothered learning MS Word. But, I can use Star Office and Netscape) I did find this paper [ed.gov] which may be helpful and does address this question for you. I would seriously stress the idea of truly evaluating what using a computer really means. I think when you folks boil stuff down you'll end up teaching searching and researching techniques as well as basic e-mail concepts... really... the thought process behind forming a good search isn't intuitive to everyone it involves a very basic understanding of set theory and many poorly educated kids will have no clue what that means but it could be valuable to teach them.

Think "Library Science" and you might be heading in the right direction for "Computer Literacy". Offer the course in an "at your own pace" format if you can. Make it so the smart kids can finish in a week and the not-so-smart can take a whole semester if they need to.

As for more advanced IT topics, are you going to teach System Administration? Web Development? Programming? PC Repair and troubleshooting?

As for programming I reccommend taht you consider Pre-Calc as a prerequisite. I've taught programming to students who hadn't been introduced to the concept of a "function" without the mental tool of the "function" in the student's head your programming instructor will have a hell of a time. Some of my student's didn't know what a variable was and it was very hard to progress past "Hello World" with those students... and this was a COLLEGE class... albiet the Adult Education section.

Re:just for starters...

[TheTomcat]

So long as the exam is useful.

I had "intro" classes that asked incredibly stupid questions on the exam.

a) In Word, which menu contains the spell check? [we were writing on paper, not allowed to touch our machines]

b) Describe the exact click-process for creating a pie chart in Excel. Your data is in column C. (ex: Insert>Chart>etc etc etc. They expected the exact menu sequence.)

These are completely stupid questions. I don't know which menu contains Spell Check in Word, but I can always find it in 5 seconds (and use the keyboard shortcut in the future).

The curriculum actually involved passing out menu maps of Office products and having us memorize them.. Useless.

S

Re:HS computer course a joke....a possible solutio

[rtaylor]

Heh. In highschool we were asked to write a poker program using Quick Basic. Most people did ascii art, a few just printed numbers. Then, 4 of us teamed up and wrote a poker application with full mouse control, 640 x 480 bitmapped graphics, and it had the ability to play music (wav files) in the background (via timeslicing). To top it off we added a pretty good AI -- then multiplayer AI support which would talk to eachother about sports, news events, etc. You as the human could start conversations with them.

Needless to say, it was no longer really a poker program, and had more creature feeping than nearly anything else around.

The point of the story? If your bored, do what they ask plus some stuff to make it a challenge.