Computer-Based Job Training Gets a Failing Grade.

I once worked for a few months as a temp, and from time to time there were days when I didn't have a job assignment.

On one of those, I took the agency up on its offer of free computerized training, because I wanted to learn more about an application that I didn't know particularly well. I spent the afternoon working through a program that presented the most useful features of that application, and then I took a multiple-choice test that was supposed to evaluate what I could do.

I got 15 percent right. For each question, there had been just four possible answers, so I somehow did worse than if I had guessed at random.

The problem (I like to think) was not me, but the fact that the training made a completely unreasonable assumption about learning. It assumed that learning how to use this application was all about memorizing complicated sequences of steps and being able to remember them in isolation from the program they were a part of.

In other words, know-how and the ability to figure things out as you go along didn't count as much as a hard-drive-like memory. But when I actually sat down at a computer and launched the application, it turned out that I was able to figure it out as I worked through it -- without much thanks to the training. In spite of my test score and my waste of an afternoon, the agency sent me out on assignments that required knowledge of this application.

Lessons learned

I've always thought this was an object lesson in the ways that one of our most popular ideas about technology -- that computer-based training and personalized electronic tutors educate students, train the work force, and boost levels of productivity -- can turn into a kind of joke. And computer-based training is not the only example of a way in which a significant investment in technology can go wrong.

Anyone interested in some thought-provoking millennial reading may appreciate Cliff Stoll's new book "High Tech Heretic: Why Computers Don't Belong in the Classroom and Other Reflections by a Computer Contrarian" (Doubleday, $24.95). Stoll is an MSNBC commentator and veteran techie who nonetheless has a skeptical view of technology's promise.

He focuses mostly on the popular idea of computerized education and training. Education, of course, has real relevance to small businesses, even if it is indirect. But Stoll also deals with issues that are a little, closer to the bottom line.

For example, he asks whether software presentation tools can get in the way of successful sales presentations, or whether employees who spend more and more time online might become less and less able to deal with customers and co-workers face to face. Stoll's book is short and entertaining, and it makes a good choice for a quick read over the holidays.

One example of a suspect technology is presentation software. In his essay called "The Plague of PowerPoint," Stoll worries that reliance on built-in visual effects and the cookie-cutter approach to presentations that is promoted by templates is destroying the art of public speaking.

Boring either way

For instance, Stoll raises interesting questions about whether boring presentations given with the help of fancy software have simply replaced boring presentations given with index cards. Worse, he wonders whether boring presentations given with the help of fancy software are replacing presentations that are given With real fire and knowledge of the subject at hand.

As he demonstrates, it can be funny to imagine some of the world's most memorable speeches rewritten for presentation through a digital overhead projector (think: "12/7/45 -- Day that will live in infamy").

Stoll also notes that malfunctioning projection equipment can leave a techie presenter in the lurch. In addition, carefully scripted presentations can deter a speaker from connecting with the audience by tailoring the presentation to their questions and mood.

Another question he raises is whether technology meant to make us more productive is actually wasting time. Some studies have already suggested that the time saved by productivity applications like word processors is being squandered instead on things like formatting and troubleshooting.

Online overdose 

Stoll adds to those questions by asking about the open-ended nature of time spent online. Information that is presented in traditional media like articles or TV programs usually has a definitive end. Web-page links to pages with still more links can result in spending more time surfing than people realize. In some cases this is an exciting and valuable capability, but in others, it's distracting. Instead of simply checking for a stock price or reading a single article, you can end up surfing away valuable minutes and hours.

Stoll questions whether increasing amounts of time spent online -- especially among younger people -- may reduce everyone's ability to deal with people in the "real," not virtual world, and the way in which technology can separate us from the people who can help us.

As examples, he points to a help-desk staff that is remarkably unhelpful, perhaps because they are more used to dealing with machines than people.

By now it's clear to pretty much everybody that the Web is bringing major changes to the way that business is done. It should also be clear that for at least some of the steps we take forward, there will be some steps back.

Christopher Ott is a freelance technology writer and author of "Global Solutions for Multilingual Applications" (Wiley, 1999).