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The META Problem
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My wife and I went out to eat with my sister and brother in law the other day and over lunch an interesting topic came up. My brother in law was talking about a conversation he had with a local business owner in the area where they live. The business owner was complaining that schools are doing students a disservice these days by "forcing" them to use Chromebooks.
Now, as a person who works in public education, more specifically, the technology side of education, my brother in law thought this might be interesting to me and he wanted to pick my brain a bit about the subject.
Let me give you a bit of background just in case you aren't familiar with Chromebooks. Chromebooks are mobile devices like laptops that run the Google Chrome (or Android) operating system. They have become a staple in school districts due to their low cost, ease of management, and integration into the Google Workspace ecosystem.
Having worked in education technology for over 20 years, I immediately knew what the business owners issue was. It has been a long standing debate in education circles for the better part of a decade. You see, there are a fair number of people who feel that since business used to mainly use Microsoft products like Word and Excel, those are the things that students should be using in school.
While I understand their argument, I don't really feel like it applies as much as it used to. Besides some extremely high level stuff, Google Docs and Sheets offer pretty much the same functionality and experience as Word and Excel.
My guess is, this business owner had a couple of new hires fresh out of high school or college and they weren't able to easily pick up the programs and processes that they use in his business. Which honestly, I think stems from a bigger problem than Microsoft versus Google.
I wonder if what it boils down to is the the fact that young people don't have the problem solving skills they used to in the past. I think @tarazkp has talked about this at length in several of his posts. You'd have to go searching through his blog to find them though.
META - Most Effective Tactics Available
Don't misunderstand, I am not blaming gaming for this issue, but I think the use of META is a good example of how problem solving has gone out the window. Personally, I am guilty of using META myself. I recently picked up Diablo 4 a couple of months ago. Instead of trying out a class and building it the way I want, I immediately went online to read the numerous guides about what class and build will help me master the game the quickest.
All the hard work has been taken out of the equation. With the advent of AI, that is going to be even more the case. When everyone is looking for that easy mode, they aren't able to put in the work to solve the problem on their own.
I remember some time ago we implemented a new "test" that people who wanted to be secretaries in the district needed to pass to get the job. Oddly enough, it mostly involved doing different things in Word and Excel. Everyone was complaining about how hard the test was and how it was impossible to pass.
I also remember there was one lady who took the test and was able to pass it. Some of the others complained that she only passed because she used the Internet to look up how to do the tasks we were asking her to do. Much to their chagrin, I wasn't appalled as they were, I was actually kind of impressed and that lady went on to be a secretary at various positions in the district until she retired.
I can tell you right now, on paper, she probably wasn't the best candidate for the job, but she had problem solving skills and she was able to grow into the position. Unfortunately, on the flip side of people not having problem solving skills like they used to, businesses don't always feel they have the time or resources to allow workers to grow into the positions. That's a whole different post!
Obviously, problem solving isn't completely out the door as those people who create the META for others to use have put in the trial and error themselves. It's pretty clear that number is getting smaller and smaller. As I said before, AI is only going to make it worse.
Is the world just harder, or are people just lazier? Of course many like to point their finger at the education system, and while yes, there are some bad apples in the bunch (there always are), I think it's more a piece of the problem, not the source.
I can appreciate that small business owners frustration, but I honestly think it is misplaced. Maybe I am taking it too personally, but after using Microsoft products for years, I was pretty easily able to switch almost exclusively to using Google Workspace. Shouldn't it pretty easily work both ways?
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