IT and the Next Generation - Report Example

?THE TOPIC OF LEARNING AND THE TOPIC OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY Introduction – an overview of IT development in society Main report – IT and the next generation The kind of new skills that IT teaches The Group Study The issue of IT’s impact on social attitudes and trends Internet & Organization Conclusion – why I am grateful for IT Introduction Wherever you were brought up, chances are that you soon learned about the differences in applied technology between one group of people and another. It is perhaps most evident in school-days history classes: in Victorian Britain, for example, working class families had to wash all their clothes by hand, whereas nowadays people think nothing of chucking their clothes in some washing machine with a bit of powder, pressing a button and leaving the machine to it. The Japanese samurai used to regard the katana as a fundamental symbol of their heritage, but you just know damn well that they would have envied all these mechanised weapons like machine guns, tanks and bombers (not to mention nuclear warheads – no offence, by the way, to any Japanese people who may be reading this!) that are so well recognised today. Information technology is no exception. And no-one would disagree that technology has its place in “lighter” interests as well as “get things done” ones, such as personal entertainment. We were in awe of the television long before iPod products became released on the market. We actually live in an age where some people would feel embarrassed about being seen with a CD player in public – I state this point to back up the claim that IT has unequivocally altered education programmes to a certain extent, in a bid to keep our children “up-to-date.” However, the advent of the whole IT thing it’s by no means nothing but sweetness and light when you think more deeply about it… read on and you’ll see why. Objectives and Experience ‘Research In Information Technology’ has given me an ideal knowhow regarding the clarity of Internet and its impact on the organizations. There are various conclusions that I have drawn from the study of Internet and their role in the organizations today. I conducted a project under a team and some great facts were revealed. Also working on such project in teams gave me the best experience of managing people in a coordinated manner. Besides that several thoughts came from all which made the decision making process much easier as well as effective. New ideas and observations which came from various individuals were quite helpful while we did this study. Some of the possible derivations and observations from our study that we concluded have been summarized below. Main report IT and the next generation Although I’m not a bona fide expert in IT or computer-aided education or anything like that, I do have my convictions in this area that I regard as important to share. Indeed, I would hope that I’ve convinced in the last sentence of the previous section that IT doesn’t just have its significance as a classroom subject. It has considerable societal relevance. I look at children today and I definitely don’t need reminding that youth tend to regard the IT-related products that they possess as status symbols. It is especially obvious with mobile phones and, to a lesser extent, computer games (Pokemon, at least, certainly took the world by storm). Even the well-known American cartoon series South Park has entire episodes that are parodies devoted to satire aimed at Facebook and computer games consoles, among other things. Of course, children are curious, so you shouldn’t be too surprised if your child relishes the prospect of learning about modern technology (even more so if they are made to believe that it is “important” i.e. how else would they keep up-to-date in society?). So maybe a good place to start would be to look back at the IT-related education I received as a child. Interestingly enough, my younger brother was writing programmes on a Commodore 64 before we reached puberty… but I can vaguely remember when I first started interacting with typing software packages. Only more than a decade later would I realise how useful typing is – it’s not just several times faster than writing (some people can type 80 words a minute!); when you’ve finished your work you can save the file on the computer’s drive, something that it is notably easier and more convenient than keeping hard copy in a safe place. If you have a printer, then printing a written document is easy – and if you’ve ever had issues with handwriting that’s hard to read, then you have probably already agreed that it’s an attractive option. My IT-related education got more advanced in my teenage years. I learned of the Windows packages easily enough. But Excel doesn’t just let you enter data into spreadsheets; it has all these useful formulae (I still have to look up the more complex formulae functions, if I even use them at all). Powerpoint, of course, is a package devoted exclusively to presentations. Then there’s Access, which deals with databases, which is especially handy if you’re responsible for managing something complex. IT education in schools these days goes at least as far as this. Then there’s the Internet, which is irrefutably ubiquitous in society as a whole, and not just as far as education is concerned. Search engines (especially Google) are not only hailed as virtual universal encyclopaedias; they’re also a quick solution if you want to “do something online” – this is usually shopping online or finding someone to recruit for a needed job. When people shop online the transactions necessary involve automatic deductions of funds from a finance account the user has – it may be a bank account, subject to the provision of correct credit card details, or an online peer-to-peer software financial account (most commonly software or Paypal). Online games are everywhere these days, including ones you can play with other people anywhere in the world live online (and ones that aren’t appropriate for children – but don’t worry, there are mechanisms in place which verify a user’s age via credit card details). And let’s not forget social media - who hasn’t heard of Facebook or Twitter? The kind of new skills that IT teaches I would say that I have already touched on this in my discussion of the Windows packages in the last paragraph. Anyone who’s learnt how to manage databases with Access may have noticed that it has improved their organisational skills. Another example is presentation skills development, valid not just with PowerPoint but also with Excel, as you can get Excel to automatically create charts of data that you have selected within a spreadsheet. Of course, anyone who prides on being a real “tech-head” will likely consciously and readily innovate when it comes to getting IT to work for them (not least because a computer does all kinds of functions far faster than any human). I am able to give a basic – if crude – example: writing a program that will decode a message in that it substitutes certain data inputs with characters that will, when all read together, leave a message that the user can understand. The Group Study Unique Jewels PLc. (UJ) where the legacy continues from the past 80 years is a privately owned organization that has been in the business of creating and selling custom jewelry. It was a small unit that starts off operating by a not so successful actor who started selling artificial decorative pieces in London Theatres. UJ is a big name in custom jewelry today. It has a worldwide reach today and could cater to any demand over the globe through its website. They have a perfectly optimized site having the best web presence in custom jewelry in the world. The best feature of their website is it offers the best category of products based on occasions or dresses. The idea of this feature actually came in a post discussion of senior management, wherein one had to attend a party and was looking for the appropriate jewelry. UJs procurement policy for raw materials, which include exotic elements, has significantly changed over the years. Percentage of procurement is done through a highly specialized portal for custom jewellery makers wherein raw materials can be bid for like an auction house, but surplus materials can be exchanged between organizations based on requirements. As per sourcing head, almost 80% of raw materials are currently procured through this portal. The empirical data analysis is done on UJ’s senior management to understand the socio-technical impact of internet on their organization. The study that was undertaken was done by interviewing the senior management at UJ with a set of questions. All these questions were similar for all the people interviewed. This would help to validate the hypothesis of this study. The study has strongly confirmed the impact of internet which has brought significant change to the socio-technical aspect of a commercial organization. The conclusions that are derived out of this study are: Organization needs to adopt the facilities provided by internet, for its commercial success. To connect to the customer, an organization needs to have the proper portal and refine Organization is dependent on collaboration available through internet for each aspect of a business Small and medium organizations can use virtualization to reduce IT cost Opportunities for new business exist as internet evolves. The issue of IT’s impact on social attitudes and trends Before I continue, let me remind you that this report is about learning and IT in a very broad and general sense… and learning is definitely not just a matter of what people aim to teach others in a classroom. And it can be pointed out that IT has veritably revolutionised modern education systems. Indeed, I can remember that, when I was at school, I was sometimes given homework that was, quite literally, “have a look for material fitting this description on the Internet.” It’s tempting to say that introducing our children to IT at an early age has nothing but benefits to offer, whether their future aspirations involve IT or not. But there are people who are quick to remind us that it fosters more than interesting and engrossing skills that were hardly taught to countless generations gone before – negative things. I once saw a birthday card with a cartoon on the front of a baby unwrapping presents on his birthday and saying, “I’m going to keep this and flog the rest on eBay!” – when you consider how quickly children master IT and the Internet these days, it’s supposed to be funny. But to some that will be a stark reminder that there are passionate arguments that IT has reduced the intelligence, social faculties and social sanity of some people. If it’s true that IT-related development is something (virtually) the entire human race is proud of – and brought us closer together, no less – then it’s also true that, today, its influence on us is all but out of control. Certainly as far as the Internet is concerned. In its early stages, the Internet served only for allowing the distribution / interchange of information between those in certain professions, but these days, literally anyone who has access to a computer can add their content… content that could be taboo or illegal. Because anything goes on the Internet, it gets blame for social problems in much the same way television does. But things can only get worse when users can so easily mask their identity or impersonate someone else. There are other things. If you’ve ever gotten used to hearing someone say, “there’s an app for that,” you may well think that they are pathetic i.e. their dependence on modern technology. And it’s not as if computer addiction is a rare topic – when a person loses touch with reality it’s nearly always a cause for concern. Internet & Organization When the organizations were studied and socio-technical approach was adopted we came to the following conclusions – 1. The socio-technical system has helped organizations work on their work design with the interactive people of the organization and Information Technology. This understanding is very important to create internet applications to meet an organizations demand. 2. The underlying technology of the internet has been way influential in the dynamic world of today. The primary reason for the growth of internet is the advancement of technology which has always been innovative as well as dynamic in nature. Internet is also considered to be the driving force behind the open source technology development. This has actually given organizations the direction for new operations management. Today internet is source of the fastest communication which is used by all bigger as well as smaller organizations. 3. If one considers the relation of Internet and organization the collaboration has been a significant one. It is one of the most common tools used by the organizations today in order to communicate. It has been of great help for the organizations to keep in touch with their associates and employees making their business process faster. There are large numbers of tools available today both for larger as well as smaller players assisting them to manage their businesses better as well as faster. 4. The most efficient is the newly created concept of E-Commerce. It has changed the way business was done ever before. With most of the organizations going online, Internet is one of the biggest places of market for many people around the globe. Internet has provided the best platform for firms to trade their product, hold auctions or expand their reach beyond a limited area where they were operating in. Some search engine optimization as well as search engine marketing tools need to used in order to gain visibility so that more and more customers could be attracted towards their offers. 5. The important aspect that internet has created is the world of virtualization. The IT infrastructure is one of the most cost effective ways through which one can promote their brands and sell their products. The business has gone 24x7 with less investment required by the company selling their products or services. There are about three virtualization offerings that is available namely: ‘Software As A Service’ (SAAS), ‘Platform As A Service’ (PAAS) ‘Infrastructure As A Service’ (IAAS). Why I am grateful for IT I’ve only got to look at a typical day in my professional life to appreciate the place of IT not only in my life, but in society at large. I say this because I work from home; I earn my money by completing translation and other writing tasks for people who send me them online. Payment, too, is very easy and convenient compared to what it must have been like as little as 100 years ago, as my clients send me, electronically, amounts of money equivalent to what I’m owed for projects I have completed for them to either my bank account or one of my online accounts (subject to my providing them with certain details that make these transactions possible). It’s because of IT today that I don’t even have to leave my home to get my work done; it’s simply an easy and safe way to make a living. But I’m convinced that there are other things I benefit from today thanks to IT. Let’s just say that, for all I’ve saying about the link between IT and society in this article, no-one is going to argue that the age of digitised communication has given more power to the individual – if they can muster the skills necessary! I remember how, when I was growing up, I was hardly the scientific mind of the family (certainly compared to my Imperial College graduate brother). I knew little or nothing about the “latest technology” around at any given time, whether or not I knew it existed. I thought I could be happy for myself despite this. But I certainly didn’t how and when I’d begin using it, if I ever did. But when I started out as a translator, I came to realise that it would be futile to expect me to have any success as a professional freelance translator without improving my IT skills in ways that were alien to me. Getting my own website was quite a roller-coaster ride. I thought obtaining (and learning how to use) a Paypal account would be hard work until, when I first logged onto the website, I saw that all I needed was an email address and that it was free and self-explanatory. It was the same when I got a Facebook account and a Twitter one. Besides that, I’m a fast keyboard typist today – about 50 words per minute max. and improving! It’s for the reasons indicated in the last two paragraphs that I feel that learning new IT skills has improved my confidence (if we really are talking about “education” here). Given that I have claimed that the age of digitised communication has given more power to the individual, this “confidence” I speak of would include a better understanding of my position in society, and a sense of belonging. References 1. Udel, Jon, Practical Internet Groupware, O'Reilly & Associates, Inc, ISBN: 1- 56592-537-8, 1999 2. Savoie, M and Raisinghani, M. 1999. "Identifying future trends in information technology". 3. Industrial Management and Data Systems. Vol.99, Iss.6. 4. Wikipedia – Sociotechnical systems. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociotechnical_systems [Accessed 06-06-2011] 5. Savoie, M and Raisinghani, M. 1999. "Identifying future trends in information technology". 6. Industrial Management and Data Systems. Vol.99, Iss.6. Read More