FILE NOT FOUND

[JAB]

FILE NOT FOUND

A generation that grew up with Google is forcing professors to rethink
their lesson plans

EatherineCatherine Garland, an astrophysicist, started seeing the
problem in 2017. She was teaching an engineering course, and her
students were using simulation software to model turbines for jet
engines. She'd laid out the assignment clearly, but student after
student was calling her over for help. They were all getting the same
error message: The program couldn’t find their files.

Garland thought it would be an easy fix. She asked each student where
they'd saved their project. Could they be on the desktop? Perhaps in
the shared drive? But over and over, she was met with confusion. "What
are you talking about?" multiple students inquired. Not only did they
not know where their files were saved -- they didn't understand the
question.

Gradually, Garland came to the same realization that many of her
fellow educators have reached in the past four years: the concept of
file folders and directories, essential to previous generations’
understanding of computers, is gibberish to many modern students.

<https://www.theverge.com/22684730/students-file-folder-directory-structure-education-gen-z>

[Michael Trew]

On 9/25/2021 7:35 AM, JAB wrote:
> FILE NOT FOUND

(snip)

> Gradually, Garland came to the same realization that many of her
> fellow educators have reached in the past four years: the concept of
> file folders and directories, essential to previous generations’
> understanding of computers, is gibberish to many modern students.
>
> <https://www.theverge.com/22684730/students-file-folder-directory-structure-education-gen-z>

That's sad.. they just think everything lives in the cloud. I can't
process that mindset, a computer has always been the same thing to me.

[Michael Trew]

On 9/25/2021 7:35 AM, JAB wrote:

> FILE NOT FOUND
>
> A generation that grew up with Google is forcing professors to rethink
> their lesson plans
>
> EatherineCatherine Garland, an astrophysicist, started seeing the
> problem in 2017. She was teaching an engineering course, and her
> students were using simulation software to model turbines for jet
> engines. She'd laid out the assignment clearly, but student after
> student was calling her over for help. They were all getting the same
> error message: The program couldn’t find their files.
>

> <https://www.theverge.com/22684730/students-file-folder-directory-structure-education-gen-z>


The more that I think of this; the more it bothers me. Had I of started
on a 4 year college degree immediately after high school, I'd have
graduated in 2017, when apparently this was first an issue for freshman.
These kids would only be 3-4 years younger than me, and I started to
learn a computer in the late 90's.. smart phones weren't invented until
these kids were 10, so how do they not understand file structures?
Heck.. smart phones even have file structures.

[Eli the Bearded]

In misc.news.internet.discuss, Michael Trew <michae...@att.net> wrote:
> These kids would only be 3-4 years younger than me, and I started to
> learn a computer in the late 90's.. smart phones weren't invented until
> these kids were 10, so how do they not understand file structures?
> Heck.. smart phones even have file structures.

The article claims that the kids have never learned them because they
use "find file" or the like all the time.

I can see it tying in to _Everything is Miscellaneous_ (about the
difficulty of classifying information for all needs), book and
website: https://www.everythingismiscellaneous.com/ ; and the
promises of "nosql" databases like MongoDB that attempt to
accomodate unstructured data in a sensible way.

BUT, for what it's worth, I asked my youngest kid, who is in high school
now, and he understands hierachical file systems just fine for his
level. That is, he gets there's a root and how trees of subdirectories
work, but he wouldn't be right coding one or identifying places with
the hierachy breaks (eg, loopback mounts on Android phones).

Elijah
------
there's only the one kid living at home now to ask

[JAB]

On Tue, 28 Sep 2021 03:54:06 -0000 (UTC), Eli the Bearded
<*@eli.users.panix.com> wrote:

> I asked my youngest kid, who is in high school
>now, and he understands hierachical file systems just fine

Side note

Cursive writing - Schools in the United States are not required to
teach cursive writing under guidelines set out in 2010 in the Common
Core State Standards, which presents educational standards for English
language, arts and mathematics in grades K-12 ( here ) . The
Washington Post reported on the decision here.

<https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-cursive-constitution/fact-check-schools-have-not-stopped-teaching-cursive-writing-to-keep-children-from-reading-the-u-s-constitution-idUSL1N2MF290>

Upshot...each child's awareness/skills of this/that are dependent upon
what's happening in their environment...and their focus.

Unless school instruction required a student to fetch a file, chances
are, they would be clueless.

>problem in 2017....A generation that grew up with Google

Google Chromebooks - I'm familiar with DOS/Windows, but only use a
chromebook for traveling to check emails and do web surfing. I've
never focused upon its file/dir setup, but I would have to learn how.

I don't even know if there is a program within it to see it all, like
in DOS/Win.

"The first Chromebooks for sale, by Acer Inc. and Samsung, were
announced at the Google I/O conference in May 2011, and began shipping
on June 15, 2011"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromebook

[Michael Trew]

On 9/28/2021 7:49 AM, JAB wrote:
> On Tue, 28 Sep 2021 03:54:06 -0000 (UTC), Eli the Bearded
> <*@eli.users.panix.com> wrote:
>
>> I asked my youngest kid, who is in high school
>> now, and he understands hierachical file systems just fine
>
> Side note
>
> Cursive writing - Schools in the United States are not required to
> teach cursive writing under guidelines set out in 2010 in the Common

> Core State Standards.

The common core mess is a whole other discussion.. dumb 'em down, lower
the standards..

Anywho, cursive was mandated when I was in school, and for several years
in grade school, we weren't allowed to print, only cursive. I believe
my daughter's private school still teaches cursive.

>> problem in 2017....A generation that grew up with Google
>
> Google Chromebooks - I'm familiar with DOS/Windows, but only use a
> chromebook for traveling to check emails and do web surfing. I've
> never focused upon its file/dir setup, but I would have to learn how.
>
> I don't even know if there is a program within it to see it all, like
> in DOS/Win.

Nor do I, I've never owned one.. I assume it's a lot like a tablet with
a keyboard attached, and might have a similar "File structure" to your
smart phone.

I grew up tearing apart and rebuilding old computers, so I might know
more than most, but the concept of not understanding the root and beyond
is totally foreign to me. I suppose all of that is hidden on a smart
phone interface.. even if you plug it into a PC to transfer data, most
of it is "hidden".. I don't think you can see system files, etc.