The Decline of Computers as a General Purpose Technology (2021)

Re:The Decline of Computers as a General Purpose Technology ... by asdff on Sunday October 22, 2023 @02:45AM (#37973356)

Take it a step further and teach actual data analysis and statistics that are not coin flip/compound interest plug and chug into the calculator problems. No matter what sort of job you do in life, being able to pull a csv from all your different credit or debit accounts and draw some inferences from that would be so useful.

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Re:The Decline of Computers as a General Purpose Technology ... by eru on Sunday October 22, 2023 @03:19AM (#37973498)

Just because something fancy (or even basic) is on the curriculum doesn't mean that anyone is learning anything.

No matter how well meaning, high school barely teaches most people anything in practice.

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Re:The Decline of Computers as a General Purpose Technology ... by bee_rider on Sunday October 22, 2023 @01:44PM (#37977470)

I’m not sure what “actual data analysis” is exactly, but it sounds like something that would be better handled in a stats or science class.

Though, if programming were taught as a basic problem solving tool like writing and arithmetic, just stuck in the toolbox, a science class would probably benefit from having it there. For example, if it was expected that a kid could do programming as well as they can write a lab report, then it would probably be easy enough to add some sort of “call Numpy to do a linear regression” type section at the end of every lab report.

This sort of programming is an everyday force multiplier, and it ought to be taught as such.

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