“Due to lack of awareness, students are lacking essential computer skills”
Every problem has a solution; you just need to discover it. You cannot say which solution will, for sure, solve the problem but you can be sure that when you hit the right solution the problem shall vanish.
As we all know the situation of todays’ children(aged 10–15), we can assume that these students are unaware of basic computer skills like using MS Word, Excel and PowerPoint which are essential for todays’ needs. These students are capable of doing everything in their academics but do not know much about these important software. This indicates that having computer skills means that you can perform the tasks that competing candidates may not be able to. Using office suits, spreadsheets are vital for every individual.
In regard to this social problem I came up with the solution to make mini courses for students(aged 10–15) and train them according to the need. It is important to train children as these software are very important in future and even in the pandemic when teaching is online and students are having difficulties to access these word and PowerPoint files. To see this, I did a survey of students aged 10–15.
This survey was circulated among students of different schools and localities. 39% students are of age 11 here and 35.5% are of 12.
It shows that few students are totally unaware of MS Word whereas a lot are familiar but still there is a room for improvement.
This indicates that MS Excel is not very familiar with students and its results are less than average or just average.
The results for PowerPoint are fantastic as many of the students are aware about it due to their online classes.
Lastly, I asked in the survey what they would like to learn about the most and 60% answers were in favor of MS PowerPoint and 50% for MS Excel. This shows that students here are willing to learn about it but they do not have guidance and enough resources and so I want to work for their betterment and give these children training. For this purpose, I also had a conversation with one of my friends, who trains students with different types of programming software. Her views on this subject were likely as mine because these days teachers at school are not trying to develop these skills in students which is a need in todays’ world. Students of this age have a developing brain and they grab things easily and fastly unlike students of higher education. For this we must make a step ahead and work for them by training them on any online platform in covid days or arrange classes when things are normal. We can make mini activities to test how much they are coping up with the work.
Attaching a screenshot of my meeting with my friend.
Another thing which I followed to get to know about children better, I asked one of my students what he would like to learn about and the answer was common MS PowerPoint. Majority children want to work on MS PowerPoint. I found 3 children in my neighborhood to whom I will teach these software as most of them are lacking MS Excel skills which are very important these days as well. Making graphs, spreadsheets, calculating and solving things is a part of life and they must know about it well.
Attaching pictures of my children to be:
Above are those who are willing to learn about new techniques and to enhance their knowledge. Thus this concept of problem-solving through design thinking helped me to think about these common problems faced by students of this age and to come up with a solution.