Hey folks, you’ve been hearing about my explorations in applying technology/computers to solve problems if you’ve been around me since graduation from USC. My feeling that many answers lie within the realm of technology has not changed, and in fact, has become stronger of late. If you are debating the essence of this concept, consider that the first employer that took me on after graduation required me to sit in front of a computer 8 hours/day for 2 years — all of that time paid off for them because I did not stair at my monitor(s) (need a better word here, “obliviously?”) – no, this was the start for me to understand what I could really do to solve this employer’s business problems. That employer wisely realized the value in implementing business logic through computers in order to retain knowledge, recreate the building blocks of their marketing program, and restructure their organizational processes: Result?
KPS attracted additional clients, branded itself as a tech-saavy results-oriented strategically-minded contractor, and achieved the status set forth by its reputation to do such. The opportunity cost was none: the workload was unmanageable without having hired additional help who could manipulate the software utilized in performing the data entry and contract administration tasks for the position. The benefits of hiring somone with an affinity for technology are not esaily calculable because their company was positioned to take advantage of an unfilled market niche by having access to resources that would bolster their capabilities against the competitions’ for some time to come.
Case-in-point #2: SAIC required competence w/ technology in a moderately different fashion as all IT components for Fortune 500 companies undergo considerable design/integration review and are subject to technical review delays before they can be implemented. Nonetheless, in my >8 hours/day time there for a period of 1 year, I observed many briefings via the (2) monitors I had and all of them involved ways in which the company planned to be better positioned as a result of technology.
Bottomline: kids and teachers must learn the stuff and governments need to pick up on it.
As I’ve tried to continue my personal education, I’ve accepted responsibility for learning Java of which I may or may not “need” to know for contract administration, but I have undoubtedly realized gains by learning to better understand/communicate with the most integral player on my team (in business and socially), so far: the PC.
Java is essentially the interpreter that helps me get what I need to get done by putting my requirements in terms the computer can understand. With Java, I can manage teams from all sorts of backgrounds (Linux, Windows, Mac, etc) and I can generate detailed reports of what each of my ‘workers’ is doing via its well-developed platform.
Further, Java is not one of the employees who will be taking their retirement pension soon. If it were, I’d make a business decision to mitigate the time invested in learning the characteristics of that one employee to focus on the others who stood to make bigger contributions to the goals of the organization. Rather, Java is the kid in the top of his class and Java has won many superlatives.
In addition to great communication skills, Java’s dependability (ie: can understand what it is doing consistently and is a consistent ‘performer’) and desire to help with so many projects make it a great addition on my personal team – the wisest I have made, so far, perhaps.
It stands to reason that the younger generations (literal semaphore) will benefit from so many novelties we were not privy to and that, if used wisely, they will be able to understand our good decisions and become more efficient by taking on the good. With that in mind, it is believable that Java will be accepted in their circles as a keen role model to them and will probably influence them in bigger ways than imaginable at this time.
In the computer world which is occupying ever-growing portions of our worlds, Java is becoming ubiquitous. As of this post, Java is fundamental to ASF which created the software which runs the website via which this post was accessed and can be commented on, etc.; Java communicates between the core hardware that runs your home machine and the software that runs on it; Java communicates to databases and enables secure access to local resources and resources known as stateless resource (ie: google); and Java can be used for most other things involving a computer, including Graphics, Scripting on a Remote or Local Machine, or creating entirely new programs/operating environments.
The web will continue to grow and invariably become more integrated at the classroom level and Java is at the heart. Therefore, teaching Java to children from the start and can only help provide the necessary learning tool for them to become effective in their future goals.
For this reason, a software program called “alice,” written in Java was developed to teach children about, well, itself. perhaps the most notable authority on all things computer science, education/ software engineering related (the Association for Computing Machinery) recognized efforts on this end by accepting for publication in their annual proceedings digest an abstract of an investigation into the benefits of deploying Alice at the classroom level and has featured several-such related studies in other ACM Digital Library resources.