Digital literacy the future of education
Next generation missing skills needed by businesses; IWU hoping to fill the gap
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Indiana Wesleyan University’s Kokomo Thriving Center recently hosted a series of panels to discuss the future of education and what skills are missing from today’s workforce. Unapologetically, it was an effort by IWU to ascertain how its programming might fit into the larger educational fabric of the community.
What IWU discovered was that the future of education locally needs to be rooted in the technology of the recent past. While educators and innovators search for the next technological skillset to develop, it turns out that the business world isn’t moving with such speed. It needs workers who know how to use desktop computers and current-generation software, not the next mobile app.
“Our goal was to utilize these conversations as a pulse for the community around digital technology and educational needs,” said Liz Kerns, director of venture development at the Kokomo Thriving Center. “What we found was that across all groups – the Kokomo CEO program, Leadership Kokomo, business leaders, government officials, nonprofit and faith leaders -- lines blurred a lot.
“What the Kokomo CEO kids would say, mirrored very closely and tracked what the adults were saying. Basic digital literacy was needed because they don't have those skillsets. They haven't been taught it. We heard that from the employers, but we also heard it from the youth.”
Kerns explained that the problem isn’t unique to Kokomo. It is a generational difference inadvertently created by introduction of technology into the classroom. Today’s secondary school students work with Chromebooks and iPads. They do their homework on them, read texts, and development presentations. Today’s businesses are still tied to desktop computers and Microsoft Office.
“My children at Eastern have the same thing,” said Kerns. “My child was using Google Slides to make some presentation. I said, let's pull up PowerPoint, but they don’t do that. I had my child teach me how to use Notability on my new iPad, just to be able to notate things on PDFs.
“So, my children are teaching me something. They're just not being taught Microsoft Office and how to use it. We heard from employers who said, instead of teaching the basic skills to be able to do the job as employees, they were spending time on teaching baseline digital skills.”
It is a need that was a bit unexpected. At the IWU panels, digital training companies like Hope Training Academy and 1150 Academy were on-hand to discuss and demonstrate how the latest technology can be brought to bear in education. Even Mayor Tyler Moore got involved in the demonstrations, trying out a virtual reality training rig to assemble a virtual computer.
“Watching the mayor put a computer together in virtual reality was so fun,” said Kerns. “But then watching the same thing happen with the high school seniors was just so interesting, just to watch how quickly they adapted. It's this alternate reality, and it's being adopted more readily.
“Our whole mission is to be stewards of place, and to come alongside the community where there's a need. Digital literacy is something that we can help with. People don't realize they're missing this core competency.”
Kerns explained that IWU doesn’t want to duplicate classes on things like Microsoft Office when other local universities or even the library are already teaching it. She sees the need for digital literacy as a larger subject that needs to reach a crowd that might not be traditional college students.
“I think it can be done in a series of workshops where we're partnering with an organization like Turning Point – System of Care and getting to the people who need the class,” said Kerns. “For instance, I'm teaching a basic resume building class for Turning Point. Those things are needed. We can help with career advancement and support that.
“We have the pulse now and know there is a need. And we're excited to see how we can fill in some of those gaps. We have a fighting chance to give digital literacy skills to folks, whether it is how to use LinkedIn with clients at Turning Point, or how to how to find reliable information on the internet. There's a myriad of ways we can complement what's already there.
“You have to still train people on the digital literacy pieces that are so critical, that we take for granted, that we've been taught in a holistic way. We have to make sure we're passing this to the next generation who are digital natives.”