TD: Why is it so important to use technology, like digital signage, to reach today’s students?
MK: Today’s students have been plugged into technology and connectivity essentially since they were born.
More traditional methodologies of reaching students – printed media, non-digital media, textbooks – those types of mediums are not as well embraced. The attention span simply isn’t there for them with today’s students.
Bringing in a technology like digital signage that is visually appealing, connected and up-to-date content-wise, and that has current trends in media, is a way to keep students connected to their learning curriculum and the education they’re getting. Hopefully it will inform them better than more formal, traditional media would be able to.
TD: How have students of today become unprepared for the competitive workplace?
MK: Unfortunately there exists a mentality with today’s students that everything will come to them. Everything will wind up on their plate and they can sort through and do what they need to do from there.
That’s simply not the way to approach the workforce, especially in the early parts of your career.
Today’s students have shifted the focus from how they will go into the world and create a niche, carve out a skillset, gain a position, job security, and future success.
That mentality has sadly exited today’s student bracket. It’s much more of an inbound mentality. What are my employers going to provide to me? What is my educational system going to provide for me? Ultimately, how am I going to be catered to so I can make my decision on how I want to work?
TD: Why is it so important to prepare these students for the workplace?
MK: A lot of students in today’s world haven’t worked during school like generations before them traditionally have. A lot of previous generations in America and around the world have worked their way through higher education. They’ve worked in college. They’ve worked through Master’s programs to pay the bills.
A lot of students don’t have to do that nowadays. Loans are more accessible. Higher incomes across the board allow parents to send kids to school.
It’s important that we take a look at the inbound mentality that students have and we figure out what’s not going to work about it. Students that have never had to be in the workforce before they graduate college, or hold a full-time job before getting a Master’s are simply ill-prepared for what lies out there. They haven’t had to learn a skillset on their own. They haven’t had to make themselves marketable in a non-academic environment.
Unfortunately this is a realization that, until it slaps you in the face, you have no idea about.
As educators, technology providers and employers, it’s our responsibility to make the upcoming workforce aware of the challenges that will be facing them. Unless they get off their iPhones and iPads and take a look at the real world, you won’t see it coming until it’s too late.
TD: What are some examples of ways digital signage has been used to prepare students for the job market inside the classroom?
MK: With the amount of content and connectivity that digital signage provides to students inside the classroom, it has given students exposure to information that piques their interest in a career field, career path, or skillset niche that they have not previously explored.
When you have an educational environment with generic content that’s developed as part of a curriculum, that’s all students know as far as that particular skillset or career path goes.
When you’re able to bring in technology like digital signage into the classroom environment you can keep the students connected with all sorts of third-party content. News, trade information, world economics, world politics. You give them access to information they normally wouldn’t see or search out on their own.
That tends to open some channels for them. It raises awareness of what’s available out there. It provides out-of-the-box thinking methods. It provides ways to see what they previously wouldn’t have seen. It ultimately may pique their interest in a new skillset or career path that may be the way they go for the rest of their life.
TD: How can digital signage be used outside of the classroom, around campus, to prepare students for the job market?
MK: Digital signage in a non-classroom environment can provide a guidance path for students throughout a campus.
It can show them that, while academics are important, you need to be a well-rounded individual. You need to understand the concepts of discipline and how they apply to everything, not just academics. You need to understand the concepts of scheduling, creating appointments, being on time in the workforce.
It can enforce those throughout an educational institution. It can enforce them in gym and cafeteria environments.
Bringing core life concepts to the table, reinforcing awareness of information. Awareness of what’s going on in your state, country, world, and how to be a part of and engage in that. Those are some ways digital signage helps outside of the classroom.
TD: How do these examples teach students about critical thinking, teamwork and collaboration?
MK: One of the beauties of a well-designed, well-deployed digital signage solution is that multiple team members can contribute to the success of that deployment.
With the nature of technological understanding that students have these days, inherently they understand that there were multiple content contributors to achieve that end result. Even viewing a digital signage solution, when you have different dynamic content on the screen, it enforces that it takes team members, a whole group, to successfully achieve content creation and deployment.
The result you’re seeing in front of you day-to-day is not the result of one person. It’s a result of collaborative team efforts. That’s what it’s going to take as a community and a workforce to improve and move forward.
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