[BNM] OT] Usability VS. User Ability WAS: No, I will not unsubscribe...

[Julian Blundell]

Sounds a little like the big discussion about the value of teaching people
'dynamic learning' rather than 'concrete learning', the later is learning by
rote, the former by experimentation and deduction, rather more valuable in
this rapidly changing world.

Jules

On 17/01/07, Jonathan Hirsch <jon at hirschworks.com> wrote:
>
> Good points, Hugh.
>
> > Like most problems, people are at the bottom of it. Fix the people,
> > and the problems will go away.   :)
>
> This reminds me of an issue that seems to be quite big in education
> at the moment - that the one key skill, perhaps, which just about
> everyone needs nowadays, is not so much any one specific skill set,
> as simply the ability to learn on the fly, i.e. to be able to adapt
> to whatever technology gets thrown at them. People who have grown up
> with computers seem somewhat better at this than the 'older
> generation' but still not everyone has that ability. Seems to be
> something our education system is not at all well equipped to teach
> (if it is even something that can be 'taught' in the conventional
> sense?).
>
> That's probably something that most of us in the new/interactive
> media industry don't really need to think too much about - we take
> for granted that we know how to search the web for resources, or
> reach for the manual when we get stuck, and we know how to use the
> index to find what we need, and we're used to the idea of
> experimenting and playing with technology until we work out how it
> works. I've long maintained that the (ideal) 'interactive media skill
> set' is applicable to just about any (white collar) job and if
> schools taught it as a basic foundation, people would leave school
> fairly well equipped for a wide range of (not just interactive media)
> careers, as well as (probably) large aspects of life in general...
> Just my 2p of course.
>
> Jon
>
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