Innovative instruments to study and work

Normal 0 14 false false false IT X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Tabella normale"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} Until few decades ago clerks had at their disposal instruments like typewriters, paper and pens, paper-based archives and so on, but nowadays the situation has completely changed, and among the instruments that any clerk has to use, there are software and hardware tools, which seem to have become essential to do almost everything. This is what has happened to students, too: until recently studying meant using books, writing your own papers with a pen (you could possibly use the typewriter of your daddy or elder brother to make your work seem more “professional”), while now the pc has become an essential instrument for all students. The great evolutions that there have been in a relatively short time span have had such a great impact on office job and studying, that if a student or a clerk of 20 or 30 years ago were transported into our epoch through a time machine, he would probably not know where to start from to do his job.

Technological innovations and the spread of the internet have enormously changed the way we work and study. Consider for example a kid of the primary or junior high school that has to write a paper on a given subject. In the past he would use the encyclopedia that he found in his house, and if he did not have one, he would go to the nearest library, he would choose the most suitable books, and he would write his paper. Nowadays many kids just connect to the internet, look for the right entry in Wikipedia, and copy and paste everything on a word document, which is barely to be printed and handed to the teacher. It is not always like that, obviously, and if you use all the possibilities that internet gives you without stopping at the easiest solution, the web turns out to be an inexhaustible source of news and information. However, this does not mean that books have to be forgotten: on the web you might find more and more varied pieces of information, but very often these pieces of information are also less exhaustive.

Even more than to school, computer science has brought many changes to the workplace. Without a software like automation office or storage systems like the IBM System x3800, nowadays clerks would be lost. Just think about all the things that you can make with the office automation software: you only need to install it to have all the instruments to write texts, but also to surf the internet and to use e-mails, to work with spreadsheets and databases. It seems impossible to be able to work without a pc on your desk, and if we think about the instruments that our parents had at their disposal to do their job, we can easily realize that technology has revolutionized also the way we work.