Big IDEA

20 skills?

19 July 2005

T.H.E Journal Online published a piece by Laura Turner, “20 Technology Skills Every Educator Should Have.” Any time I see one of these lists, I usually take exception to what’s there and what’s missing. Before I say what I’d remove from the list, please understand that my philosophy about educators and technology is that we are first teachers; technology supports our trade, but knowing how to use a technology is useless if it doesn’t support our work.

What I’d Remove

2. Spreadsheet skills–yeah, I use spreadsheet software from time to time, but I’m not sure this is a skill required for teaching.

3. Database skills–I’m not too big on database design, and I don’t know why every educator should be. I think it’s more important that educators know how to find information contained in publicly available databases.

6. Web site design skills–sure, this is something I do a lot of, but should we expect educators to be web designers? Ridiculous. I’m not even a very good web site designer and the amount of time I’ve spent learning what I know is astronomical. Why not give teachers access to a blog or some other content managment system and let them publish content without a huge time investment?

13. WebCT or Blackboard teaching skills–why? Did I miss the memo about all education moving online?

14. Videoconferencing skills–again, why? If a teacher needs videoconferencing skills then they can learn; otherwise, I think it’s a waste of energy.

Not Unique to Educators

Some items on the list apply to all computer users.

7. E-mail management
10. File management
11 & 12. Downloading and installing software
15. Computer-related storage devices (disks, cd’s, usb drives, etc.)
20. Computer security

Let’s use a different name

5. Web navigation skills–”Educators should be able to navigate the World Wide Web and search effectively for data on the Internet.” Yeah, I agree, but the links provided are all about searching and finding information on the Internet. This is a crucial skill, so why don’t we just call it “Finding information” or “Searching” or something? When I hear “navigation skills” I think: can I use the back button? can I add a bookmark? can I type a URL to access a site?

What’s Missing

There’s not too much more I would add, but the omission of these is a severe flaw:

1. RSS, syndication, aggregation
2. Web-based bookmarks/social bookmarking
3. Instant messaging

I think that teachers would have an easier time seeing the educational applications of these technologies over those that I’d remove from the list.

What else is missing?