Computers in the Workplace

 The Run Down

I've worked indirectly in higher ed for about a decade now so industry I am most familiar with technology in is higher education. Within higher ed, computers are used for a large variety of things. 

Within this sphere we see things such as Canvas, Moodle, or Blackboard which can be used for creating discussions and posts. Zoom meetings being held for remote learning, or computers being used to create and grade assignments. 

However, computers are also used for keeping track of students and faculty within databases. Here data such as attendance, gpa, classes completed, and so forth can be tracked.

Scholarships are also created, tracked, and assigned via computers.

Security considerations aside

Computer literacy is absolutely critical not only for security reasons, but also to make the learning process efficient. For example, if staff do not know how to utilize email, powerpoint, or other applications the students will ultimately suffer from the lack of literacy on the instructors part.
Looking at historic trends, technology will continue to drastically impact education. Just a few decades ago we were not using online platforms, virtual meetings, whiteboards, tablets, or any of the like. In the future, I suspect we will be leveraging augmented or virtual reality further as a way to teach.
 At current, these technologies are already being used for simulations in realms such as building a PC (PC Building Simulator on Steam, n.d.) or learning to drive a forklift (Forklift-Simulator, 2023). 

AI will likely be leveraged more within the next 10 years as well for grading papers or detecting plagiarism. 

At current we use technologies like TurnItIn to do this, but I can potentially see a large language model being bed to an AI along with varying content in order to detect plagiarism. 

People are currently using ChatGPT and related technologies to cheat. I see similar technologies being leveraged to prevent cheating in the future.

Resources:

Forklift-Simulator. (2023, July 13). Home - Forklift-Simulator. Forklift-Simulator - Play Hard_Work Smart. https://forklift-simulator.com/Links to an external site.

PC building simulator on Steam. (n.d.). https://store.steampowered.com/app/621060/PC_Building_Simulator/