Sunday, June 19, 2011

Another random aside.

Going to sit down after work and put out another game design post, but for right now I'm just going to jot down a realization I had a little while ago about the level of computer education I received throughout my primary education. The realization being that I  had essentially taken the same damn class every year from 3rd grade until my freshman year in Highschool. They would sit you down, cover your hands, and have you type sentences, and measure your accuracy and Word Per Minute. Does this mean I can mark down 8 years or so of secretarial training on my resume? I think our Highschool offered some web design classes but they were cut by the time I became a Sophomore. How about you guys, similar experiences? Or did your schools have a more robust computer education program?

15 comments:

  1. I took a class like that in middle school, and never again. Teacher walked around in a circle for a year saying "KEEP YOUR HANDS ON THE HOME ROW KEYS" every 2 minutes. Ugh.

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  2. My "IT education" was just "take this computers and do what you want". Sometimes they teach us something about Word/Excel or HTML, but most of time I played Ski32 or Carmen Sandiego. :)

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  3. I didn't know how to type for crap in middle school. Part way through High School I transferred to an alternative school, but they actually offered a game design course at a home-school building about 5 minutes away which I took for credit. It wasn't amazing, but I did learn a lot in the few months I went there.

    After two years at the alternative school, they implemented a new system where they would fund 2 years of community college for 6 of their highest grade students.

    I was one of those. So I took quite a few programming and web design classes.

    I got lucky. Nearly dropped out of highschool, but instead got some solid experience in what I love to do.

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  4. Computer education sucks everywhere, I guess
    Nice blog!

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  5. Only have Java classes where I am

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  6. Your post inspired a lot of interesting thoughts. 8 years of schooling that most everybody just forgets anyways after they're introduced to things like alcohol, reality TV, and Oprah.

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  7. I think when you mention around 98wpm they won't believe you. then you will melt there keyboard. And if computer ed sucked we'd all be typing like our grandparents

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  8. Up to this very moment, I am still typing letter O with my index finger, and letter C with my left index finger.

    I have no problem with that, as long as I can type fast and efficient!

    Also, we are only trained to do typing jobs in our elementary years. High school up, we are taught to do Powerpoint, Excel, C Language, and Basic Java Programming.

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  9. I only had to take one semester of computer keyboarding, then I proficiencied out of it. god that class was annoying.

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  10. I remember when I first had it, only wanted to play games haha!

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  11. We had a strong graphic design program. I learned a lot about the adobe applications through that. But we never really had a computer education program.

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  12. When I was in school, they 'taught' us how to type for two weeks on a crappy program called Maevis Beacon. It was a really shitty 'game' that was supposed to teach you how to type.

    Nobody really learned anything, but I caught on quick enough to learn how to type on my own. There were other computer classes like computer networking, hardware, CAD, things like that, but I never took them.

    On a side note, I'm trying to teach myself how to learn Dvorak style of typing. It's worth looking into.

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  13. I went to a private middle school and the typing there was pretty bad, the only way I knew how to properly type, well at least recognize the keys and do well enough, was because I went to the public library and eventually caught a grasp to the notion that practice is all that matters along side time.
    Nice post.

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  14. We had a general computer class in eighth grade, where we learned the uses of different word programs and such.

    In high school we had a web design class, but after one year I had to help teach because I already knew more than the teacher.

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  15. My high school taught me to type, that's all it taught me computer-wise. I'm very thankful that I learned to type so well, though, lol.

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