Diana L. Williams
ABSTRACT
Everyone's attitude about computers is changing rapidly. It has to. Computers are an everyday part of life that can not be avoided. Telephone bills, electric companies, credit card companies, hospitals, and even grocery store check outs are now computerized in some way.
University students at every level of education are also experiencing computer attitude changes. Almost every department in a university system now requires some computer interaction for their students.
Several questions come to mind when planning how to best introduce students to the computer. Are formal computer science classes too technical for non-computer science majors? Will specialized short courses be enough? Where do students go for personal help outside the classroom? Are computer professionals able to assist those with little or no computer knowledge? Are departments asking too much of their students? Many universities have promoted satellite computer labs staffed with professionals to meet the needs of the students and faculty in a particular department or college. These satellite labs should be able to provide a user friendly environment and some one-to-one attention to the problem at hand.
This paper will discuss some of the problems, we, as a satellite computer lab, have encountered during our existence. Since we deal primarily with graduate students and faculty in Public Health working with statistical packages, our problems are not as numerous as they could be. I plan to present just some of the problems we face and solutions we have tried for changing people's attitudes about the computer.
Index Terms
- Changing attitudes for future growth
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