Year: 2005

(cross posted at Future Tense).

Interesting article in this morning's NY Times on computer science education
and efforts to develop a richer and deeper perspective on how technology skill
connects to other skills and needs inside organizations. It strikes me as another case example of a broader trend to find a new balance between specialization and general skills in organizations:

Edward D. Lazowska, a professor at the University of Washington, points to
students like Mr. Michelson as computer science success stories. The real value of the discipline, Mr. Lazowska said, is less in acquiring a skill with technology tools – the usual definition of computer literacy – than in teaching students to manage complexity; to navigate and assess information; to master modeling and abstraction; and to think analytically in terms of algorithms, or step-by-step procedures. [A
Techie, Absolutely, and More, NY Times]

I have a new column up at ESJ that takes a look at how you might be more systematic about on-the-job learning. Here’s a small sample:

What we do know about learning is that we generally learn best by
doing. Practice, rehearsal, and performance is where real lessons are
learned. We learn near the edges of what we already know. Moreover, we
learn more from failure than from success. Furthermore, access to
someone with more knowledge helps, especially in keeping us safe from
dangerous experiments and errors.

Given these characteristics of learning and the nature of our
knowledge-work jobs, what can we do to craft a learning strategy that
integrates the two and lets us perform effectively today and in the
future? Mindfulness, time for active reflection, mapping your
ignorance, and enlisting the social environment constitute the core
elements.[ESJ-Four Keys to More Effective On-the-Job Learning]