Faithe Wempen - Digital Literacy For Dummies

Digital Literacy For Dummies

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Copyright 2015 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2014951779

ISBN : 978-1-118-96286-2 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-118-96287-9 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-96307-4 (ebk)

Manufactured in the United States of America

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Appendix

In This Chapter

Discovering how digital technology has changed the workplace

Finding out what careers are available for a computer-literate person

Learning about information worker jobs

Learning about professional IT careers

Finding out about developer positions

Computers are everywhere, especially in the workplace. By becoming a digitally literate person, as this book has prepared you to be, you greatly increase your career marketability.

In this appendix, I tell you about some careers that you might find interesting, all of which require some sort of computer literacy background. Some of them are simple administrative jobs in which you work with Windows and Office; others are more specialized and require years of advanced education.

Remember the days when people used to go into an office in the morning, stay there and work all day, and leave in the evening? That model still works for some people and some companies, but it is no longer the only model out there. The great connectivity that the Internet and wireless networking has brought our society has led to some dramatic shifts in the way people work.

Now that our phones go with us everywhere we go, salespeople dont have to stay in their offices to communicate with clients on the phone, for example. A salesperson can take a call from an airport, a limousine, or his own back porch with equal ease. When someone works in his own home, or in some private location away from the office, its known as telecommuting. The tele part comes from the olden days when remote employees communicated with the central office via telephone, but today this communication generally occurs via the Internet.

Computers used to be such bulky, expensive devices that a typical worker had access to only one of them, and it was usually inside an office building. Workers had to go to an office every day because thats where the computer was. Even if a worker had a computer at home, there was no fast and efficient way to connect it to the central office without running expensive dedicated lines. Nowadays, though, workers can work anywhere that there is computer and Internet access. They can work from their own homes, from coffee shops, from libraries, and even from their tablets and smartphones while on public transportation.

Many job descriptions are also evolving. In the days before computing (and the automation that comes with computing), work consisted of taking input, doing something well-defined and routine to it, and delivering output. For example, an administrative assistant would take hand-written notes and produce typed transcripts of them. Nowadays, however, most businesspeople do their own typing, and an administrative assistants job is more likely to involve generating original content (like making a PowerPoint presentation based on an annual report) or scheduling in-person, telephone, or online meetings.

Just for discussions sake, consider a computer-literate person as someone who knows the basic information thats covered in this book. If you have a basic familiarity with computer hardware and software, Windows, Office, networking, the Internet, and the other topics I covered in this book, youre ready to take a job that involves using a computer for at least part of the workday.

In the following sections, I describe some careers that a computer-literate person might apply for.

An administrative assistant provides office and document support to a manager or executive, freeing up that persons schedule by handling many of the everyday administrative tasks. An assistant might answer phones, plan meetings, and send email. An assistant may have access to his bosss calendar and scheduling in Outlook. Although an administrative assistant might not spend all day on a computer, he is expected to know how to use one whenever a computer is the best tool to complete an assignment.