blog 6 Teaching Technology as It Changes

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Rebecca Appel wrote this article on September 30, 2012.  Jan Muehlfeit who created the lead review of higher education in Europe for three years and will be assessed by the European Commission in Europe and will its only representative for its business sector. A lot of people are asking how young people can quickly swift gears from the school to the work place and he said,” If you take a classical industry, such as the car industry, 60 percent of all car costs are now software costs. The whole pyramid of skills surrounding this industry, from service people at the bottom to designers at the top, will move up. The essentials are flexibility, the ability to do lifelong learning and soft skills, which are not taught in schools today. Outside of school, young people are exposed to globalization. They are connected via Skype and other social networks, but school is mainly still about chalk and blackboards. There is a huge difference between what’s learned in schools today and the reality of the jobs students can expect.” (Appel, “Teaching”). Basically what Jan means is that the younger generation is much more adapt to the new technology than the older generation, and therefore are so much more useful than the older generation. The younger generation will change job periodically throughout their life, so they need to quickly be adapt to all of these rapid changes. Another question that people are asking is if Europe has enough I.T technology programs and he says, “In Europe this figure is less than 15 percent. Between now and 2015, Europe can expect to have a deficit of 400,000 I.T. professionals. According to a study done by the European Commission two years ago, 38 percent of people in Europe have no basic e-skills. So there is a huge gap in Europe, while Asian and African countries are very committed to I.T. education.” (Appel, “Teaching”). What his company is trying to do to help is that in primary and secondary schools he is creating all of these programs for student to learn about software training so that it could also educate teachers.

            This article has to do with Education because Jan is creating these programs for European schools, so that they can be a lot more tech savvy so that they could get a leg up in the business world because if they know a lot abut technology ad how it works, they will have a higher chance of getting the job than by somebody who doesn’t. This technology class should also be brought to America because there is a lot of students who would also benefit in know about technology for when the time comes for them to apply for jobs, they too would have a leg up in the competition. It’s a great idea, and it would be a lot more useful than say Calculus, which you won’t even use in the real world.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/01/world/europe/01iht-educside01.html