Integrating Technology Skills into the Curriculum

Librarians like myself spend considerable effort working with faculty to build information literacy skills into the curriculum. While many assume that finding information is becoming easier all the time (and in some cases, it is), critical evaluation of information resources is now an essential skill for coursework, the workplace, and life in general. Whether finding scholarly resources for a paper or looking for reliable information for a personal need (health or finance, for example), evaluating information is an everyday occurrence.

In my mind, the same goes for technology skills. With Gen Y, we assume that because these students grew up with the internet and are great at texting on mobile phones, they must have all of the technology skills they need. From what I observe in our information commons, this is not the case. We frequently see students who need basic assistance with the Office suite, particularly Excel and PowerPoint. What troubles me more though are the quality of their PowerPoint presentations (too many bullet points, too many cutesy clip art images, too much animation). Where will they learn to create a visually appealing, interesting, and informative presentation? If you had to consider important workplace skills, this would be near the top of the list. Likewise so would be formatting a spreadsheet to prove your case, conveying information on a memo so that it is easily read and persuasive, and so forth.

In addition to spreadsheets and presentations and those things that have long been everyday to you and me, how are we preparing students to use web 2.0 tools? I am particularly thinking of using them for self-promotion to land a job. With today's challenging economy, students should explore every possible avenue toward getting a job. From LinkedIn profiles to the advantages of blogging or at least developing a personal, professional web presence, I worry that today's students are not getting any of this in our curriculum. You and I may twitter; our students may, too, but do they consider how it might help them professionally?

Chief Academic Officers, you need to consider how building technology skills fits into the general education curriculum.