An Overview: Approaches for the Development of Basic IT Skills

Abstract

There is a growing importance of computerization, information flow and the tremendous use of Information Technology (IT) in all the fields including business, education, government and medicine. The significant improvements in IT continue to occur at an ever-increasing pace. The speed, size, cost, and capabilities associated with computers and telecommunications provide a wealth of highly attractive opportunities for using this technology to help solve business problems or enhance current ways of doing business. There is a general recognition that students in secondary, further and higher education need to acquire IT skills that match the IT needs of the contemporary businesses. The major focus of this investigation concerns the development of IT skills among new entrants to the institute of higher learning to meet the changing needs of IT, especially in the businesses environment. Traditionally, the introductions to IT courses offered in the past were through the programming languages. There seems to be a trend to acquire IT skills moving away from programming and getting skills through off-the- shelf software packages. There are many reasons for this, including the availability of powerful and user-friendly software, such as word processing, databases and spreadsheets, which have raised the level of expectations in the use of IT for business and removed the need to learn to write computer programs in a traditional block structure language. If the software packages are considered, then the obvious question, “What should be the order of their presentation in a basic IT course?” emerges. The popularity of the Internet and its use in the business environment has made it necessary be included in the introduction to computers course. This paper explores several possible approaches for the acquisition of basic IT skills among new IT enthusiasts and proposes an Information Systems Approach for the acquisition of basic IT skills used in business.