"How much do kids know about technology?" is the title of a survey conducted by Microsoft to 650 students aged 15 to 17 from public and private high schools in Montevideo and Maldonado, in August and September 2016. The same study was applied in Argentina and the results were exactly the same, said yesterday the Argentine José Cella, national director of Technology and Philanthropy of Microsoft for Argentina and Uruguay, during the presentation of the data, at the company's offices in Montevideo.
"Seven out of 10 teens feel they are computer experts," the study says. Cella commented that "it's not a novelty" and that all young people think they are experts. He called it "very serious, because if I feel like an expert, why do I want to learn?" he asked. "The definition of computer literacy is limited," states the summary of the survey, because 30% responded that "those who know" are those who use Word for a task, know how to move the mouse quickly or can help their parents, or those who know what to do when the computer crashes. In contrast, "almost no one chose 'create, anticipate, infer and make decisions' to define 'computer literacy'"; the teens' associations were "always to issues of use, not creation," Cella said. Four out of ten don't know how a computer works: they were asked "how does a computer work?" and 60% answered "because someone put programs on it", 20% answered "because I tell it what to do" and another 20% answered "because it has Word and Excel". Half did not know that the computer has a language of its own. Four out of ten said they didn't know what programming meant; 60% responded that they knew but, of those, half said it was using Word or Excel and four out of ten responded that it was knowing how to do homework with the internet. "Do you know what programming is?" was another of the questions: "only one in ten chose creativity, one in ten the ability to anticipate and two in ten to make decisions", percentages that are "very low", said Cella.
As for the usefulness of knowing how to program, 50% responded: "to have a better job", 30% responded that it was useful because they would study computer science and 20% "because it teaches them to think and solve problems". "The usefulness is due only to practical reasons and not to essential life skills," the study stressed, noting other utilities: critical thinking, problem solving, collaborative spirit, adaptability, initiative, communication, curiosity, imagination, creativity.
Challenges for teaching
Microsoft is concerned about the lack of programmers. "There are many opportunities around the world for programming. To give you an idea, here in Uruguay there are a lot of open positions that are not filled. In Argentina the same thing happens, in the United States there are about 1,000,000 open technology positions. Microsoft alone has 10,000 open positions in the United States and it does not get people; the same thing happens to Google, Amazon, Yahoo, the same thing happens to all technology companies. There are no people in India either, and there are no people in Europe either. It is not a fad, next year there will be more work," said Cella. He recalled that "the Uruguayan president" signed the Post 2015 Youth Agenda, from Microsoft and the Ibero-American Youth Organization, which mandated that there be a computer programming subject for a semester in the curriculum in the equivalent of the second year of high school. Cella said that Microsoft, together with the Fundación a Ganar and the National Football Club are developing a program for 30,000 young people to learn to program (which can be downloaded from www.yopuedoprogramar.com), and regretted that it is not incorporated into the high school curriculum. Plan Ceibal began to develop this year the project Jóvenes a Programar, but in the talk they commented that "the scale is the problem" (during this year it aimed at 1,000 young people and in 2018 it intends to incorporate 2,000). "Nor can we wait for the state to do everything," said Cella, who argued that "these social issues" are not going to be solved either by the state alone or by private or third-sector organizations alone."
The survey was coordinated by Roxana Morduchowicz, a specialist in youth culture; the press release reflects her opinion on the study. "The children (...) may know how to solve a specific problem with the tool, but they are far from the reflective knowledge we want them to build and incorporate. An example of this is that when the computer offers them two alternatives, very few of them reflect and anticipate what could happen before each one. They simply rehearse, and many of them do not even try. The great challenge today is to teach from school the technological competences which will accompany children in their whole life", he remarked.
Source: La Diaria
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