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Would You Pass the Information Literacy Test?
Grundelfeldsten writes "The Educational Testing Service -- the maker of the SAT and the GMAT -- has a new test called the Information and Communication literacy assessment. The test is designed to measure your "ability to make sense of the multiple streams of information that our computers throw at us every day," according to a Wired News reporter who just took it and described the process. The questions focus on completing tasks with Internet technologies, like using search engines efficiently and weeding out irrelevant email messages. Are such tasks really tied to technology? Or is "Information and Communication literacy" just a way for ETS to make money by selling more tests?"
Don't bother trying the free demo if you don't have Flash, block popup windows, or
restrict cookies. That's some of the most pointless web site coding I've ever seen.
Avoiding flash, popups and cookies gives you IT_literacy++.
about as much worth as our university system this SAT racket is.
Most universities over here have this as a standard test for first year students, to make sure they can use search engines properly and also reference material properly.
The unqualifiable answer to that question is an emphatic YES. The fact of the matter is that what we here on /. think of as "computer usage" is a far cry from what normal people with actual exposure to the sun and a plethora of IRL friends think. For us, a computer usage scenario includes hooking up and programming an LED disco light floor to our Linux laptop using USB 2.0 and getting it to spell 55378008.
The typical computer user gets online, checks his email, checks his stock prices, then gets back to his real life. Our real life revolves around computers, so such minimal usage seems strange and scary to us. However, it is actually what most users do.
You'd be surprised to learn that the computer usage scenario of the "real person" I described above is actually that of a "Power User". The typical person can barely turn the computer on, much less open Outlook Express without help from one of these Power Users. So, in fact, this test is useful as a step in the process of weeding out non-computer oriented hires.
Would I pass the infoformation literacy test? Is this a trick ququestion like what I would do for a Klondike Bar? Okay.. Seriously, what exactly does literacy mean?
You are given a Slashdot poll. How should you respond?
A) Choose an honest and accurate option
B) Choose an obviously ridiculous option
C) Do not answer, and complain that your preferred option was unavailable.
D) Refuse to answer, citing moral, philosophical opposition to the poll itself.
E) CowboyNeal
I bet I could pass this even at my age.
In America, you spam computers In Soviet Russia, computers spam you!
Would you pass...
Nope!
Surely a better test would be to measure the user's ability to use tools (spam filters, RSS feed aggregators, tivo-style commercial skipping, popup blockers, slashdot dupe checkers etc) to efficiently cope with / filter the "multiple streams of information" we're all bombarded with?
No Norm, those are your safety glasses; I'll wear my own thanks...
The ETS people at least understand one thing many employers don't: the important computer skills are independent of the various tools used to carry them out. We've all heard (or experienced) horror stories of applicants being turned down for a web developer position because they don't have experience with a specific piece of software (Dreamweaver, for example). Many employers can't grok the fact that someone who knows how to code pages in a text editor will learn Dreamweaver or whatever in-house application is being used in 10 or 15 minutes. Someone who is competent at database admin will be equally competent with MySQL, dBase, or - the most common case - the customized proprietary software that only exists at your company. It's time employers stopped looking at paper certs for competency with specific pieces of software and started looking at actual skills. Maybe ETS can help them do that.
"If it's real, then it gets more interesting the closer you examine it. If it's not real, just the opposite is true." -
I took this test when they were doing a pilot test at my college (they did the same at several colleges) a couple months ago. My college offered a $25 amazon gift card and a chance to win ipod. It took a couple hours to go through the whole thing, and the interface was kinda klunky. Plus at the end when I tried to fill out the comment part about the test it crashed the browser so I couldn't send my comments in lol. What was really cool was that they ended up sending out TWO amazon gift certificates (I think they accidently sent out an extra to everyone, perhaps some ppl complained because they entered wrong email to send the cards to or something) to me for $25. So I got paid $50 for a couple hours hehehe.
Sorry, couldn't resist.
"Carl Brigham, a bona-fide racist designed the SAT in 1925. "
Who wasn't racist in 1925? That was one of those wonderful interbellum years where the Klan hit its high water mark and Congress worked hard to decide who could immigrate and who could not (note that "Nordic" was specified; couldn't let those filthy Slavs, Italians or Iberians in, no matter what their skin color was).
It'd be pretty damned strange for someone doing anything in 1925 to not share those views. Why do you think Hitler was so popular in the US in the 1930's?
is "Information and Communication literacy" just a way for ETS to make money by selling more tests?
... unethical? Capitalistic? Smart? One of those, I'm sure ...
Gosh, no, is that the impression you got? Jesus. When a private corporation expands its offerings in order to generate sales, they're always doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. Why, if it had anything to do with making money it'd be
Companies have a right to make money. That's why they're there.
Tried the demo and couldn't get past the first one. Too many words.
I can handle multiple streams of information just fine, but one bloated verbose thing obviously wipes me out.
I can really see the bias now that everyone talks about. I'm perfectly fine at processing large amount of information if I can read it in chunks. But this wordy spaghetti academic writing is too confusing for me. I had a flashback to the reading comprehension sections of the tests in school where I had to read over the same paragraph a dozen times before I could figure it out.
I can see how I did so awful in college, but am doing great in the real world.
Help me take back Slashdot. When did 'News for Nerds' become 'FUD and Conspiracy Theories for Extremist Nutjobs'?
I find it amazing that people always want to find a way to mathatize (I know mathatize is probably not a word) everything. Lets create a test so we can put people in pigeon holes and see who is better then the other. Person A got 25 more IT vocabulary words right then person B, I guess Person A is better then computers then person B. except for the fact that Person B has been doing computer programming for 40 years and created (and forgot) many of those IT vocabulary Words. When will people realize that people are not something that can be graded on 1 demential grading scale, and things like common sense, experience, creativity, determination, or bravery (willing to break it apart and tinker with it). Can often compensate any failure in just knowing the information. Yea these methods are a little slower then just having the answer at the tip of finger to fill out the question, but in real life it works just as well.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
This article underpins what you said ...
t 143.shtml
http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/14_03/sa
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
It is hate filled people like you who are the problem.
_A Study of American Intelligence_ was considered the standard scientific thinking of the day when it was written. Carl Brigham broke with the then modern scientists 5 years after the book was written. He went out and specificly denouned the book and its ideas. He then went one to be one of the champions of denouncing eugenics.
Another thing about Brigham, he at least did not go around coping faulty work done by others and claim it as thier own.
My Evil Stepmother once told me that she wanted to go to community college to learn how to "do computer".
She would never pass a test like this. She thinks that AOL is the internet. She also thinks that it is great that there is lots of free (as in spyware, not beer or speech) software out there like gator and comet cursor.
I think that she is an excellent example of a real, average computer user.
I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords
I'm 21. I've had computers since I was 8, regular internet since about 12. I assume most people do. So why are some people naturally well disposed to figure out how to use search engines and email while others think of a computer as a magical device they cannot use?
I'd rather see a real assessment of the skills required to successfully use a computer as part of regular life - then test for these skills such as pattern matching, ability to follow complex instructions...
It's much more fair on people who have less computer access and more to the point, weeds out those who have real potential to do the job with a bit of instruction from those who will never do these things particularly well.
I'm also working on the idea of putting together a primer for people who don't understand what computers are for. They're often sold as appliances but with the multitude of functions they are supposed to have now, they obviously must be quite complex. Explaining the basics in clear language (including why we need such weird jargon) might help get people started on the right track instead of confusing themselves into a frenzy.
*#*#*#*#*#******* I love peanut butter sandwiches!
I don't think that being able to filter out signal from noise on the internet has very much to do with technological know-how. The technology involved is either transparent (if you're a competent computer user) or an obstacle in carrying out the decisions you've made (if you're not a competent computer user).
Whether you are capable of making the right decisions about what information to accept or reject is almost entirely an issue of language skills and reading comprehension.
The people who continue posting their sob-stories as comments to some random guy's blog entry because they're convinced that the blog entry is Maury Povich's homepage aren't doing it because they're confused by Teh Intarweb (although it is a secondary factor); they're doing it because they can't read.
The guy thinking "Why, yes, I would like a penis enlargement; let me send you my credit card number!" would probably be falling for a snail-mail snake-oil scam right now if it weren't for the internet.
People who don't have good language skills are usually oblivious to the mistakes made by others, and thus often can't tell the difference between a genuine official document and something which is obviously not an official document because it is full of spelling and grammar mistakes and makes no sense.
I admit that a familiarity with the types of information sources available on the internet, their usual form, and their relative usefulness and reliablility, is helpful. For example, someone new on the internet may be unaware that nobody ever sends official warnings of danger to random people over email - and so they may be fooled by a well-written email hoax which more knowledgeable people would immediately mark as BS.So basically your counter argument is "Who wasn't racist in 1925?" That makes no sense, it's 80 years later and we're just now trying to fix it?
I hate to sound like your mom but, "If all of your friends jumped off a bridge...."
"Plans are for fools! Oglethorpe, the plutonian (Aqua Teen Hunger Force)
I am male /.er.
Please don't tease the trolls.
The Singularity is closer than you think
Quant
I can state absolutely that I was not a racist in 1925.
rewriting history since 2109
I am an IT Guru - I pretty much simultaneously read slashdot, cycle between 3 servers and my desktop machine with a 4-port KVM, check my email, deal with phone and voicemail enquiries, eat my lunch, check my mobile for messages, enter info in the case management system, monitor 26 servers with Nagios, and manage the company Web sites and Intranet. Sometimes I'll put on headphones and listen to music while debugging as it helps me concentrate (yeah, I know..).
We don't need no stinkin' tests!
Sheesh!
AT&ROFLMAO
Just like most certification exams... Just because you can do it on paper, doesn't mean jack when it comes to "real-world" applications. Another student in my class passed his CCNA, but you should've seen him trying to configure the 2500. It was a joke! Experience in the best teacher, I'd like to see more "hands on" testing.
The best way to predict the future is to invent it. -Alan Kay
Can we have one day in this world where we don't discuss Hitler and his Nazi's. Every time I turn around and browse the internet, or change channels on the TV, I see Nazi this, Hitler that. pffhhhh...
I choose "It's just a way to make money selling tests" Testing Internet skills in children today is like testing television skills in the children of the 80's.
DON'T PANIC
I don't know if this test in particular is a valid solution for it, but I've suggested that the art-and-design college where I work use something like this to change the handling of computers in their curriculum. Currently they assume incoming students know nothing and put an Intro to Computers class on their first-year class list. And a lot of them need it. But the ones who show up the first day of class with a scuffed-up PowerBook loaded with Lightwave, Final Cut, Macromedia Studio, and Adobe Creative Suite would be better off skipping the (IMHO) remedial education (a waste of their time, money, and enthusiasm) and go right into a studio class that teaches them what to do with Photoshop, not how to use it.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Even more shockingly, computerized grading for essay tests is now being tested on several state tests. Given the sheer number of SAT tests taken every year, It wouldn't surprise me to find the development of this technology is what is spurring ETS to add the essay now, since I KNOW it's been considered since the late 1980's (I was part of the norming group for a new trial SAT, which included an essay-so obviously they were considering it at that time, if not earlier.)
Iran captures three CIA agents
i think you're getting confused. Companies have a duty to make money (that's what they're for). They even have rights pursuant to activities surrounding the making of money. They do not have the right to make money, otherwise they could sit and do nothing and then demand taxpayer cash from the government because their rights were being infringed.
Nobody has the right to make money.
I alerady fialde teh litarecy tset yuo insenistvie cold!
Remember children, all generalizations are wrong.
but I immediately thought of this as an HR test for potential office workers instead of an academic competency test. I suppose it could be a shiny new toy at Student Services in their "How to Study" program but still seems secondary to a lot of other essential academic abilities.
certainly missing ability to find porn sites, password crackers, yahoo booters, free downloads, free mp3 files, free gifts on clicks, funny pictures ;-)
hilarious
Have I passed?
I thought April 1 was almost 2 weeks ago?
OK, I've said that there should be a test to use teh internets, but I was just joking...
A) Y C) sux0r B) w00t! D)meh
A B C D 1. May I ask your kindness in moving sum of 28 million US dollars?
A B C D 2. Woul\d yo/u like to s|ho0t ga%llons of c*U%m?
A B C D 3. Would you like a FREE iPOD?
A B C D 4. Me too!
A B C D 5. RUHOTT?
A B C D 6. Does it support OGG?
It's really getting obscene... and who the hell gives a damn that there's a new test available, I hoped it was some comic 'how good are you on a computer test' as that would add more value to my day than knowing that some company is trying to make money out of selling tests to employers and educational establishments.
No, but it's flawed to pin it solely on the author and not on the times. Heck, from that one line it's impossible to tell whether he truly believed that or if he was just toeing the line to get his test published.
Do you install
a) Slackware, or
b) Ubuntu
My best sig is this one.
Mostly true.
However, as someone who knows 12 programming languages and takes about four hours to learn a new one, let me just tell you that I spent the last week learning a language tied to a proprietary product.
It's totally different; it has its own features that nothing else does, and there are about 10 different manuals describing it.
I might also add that while the SQL specification can be written on two 8.5x11 sheets, the manual for Oracle is a 600 page book. Obviously it has a little more functionality than just any old database engine.
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
just wanted to let you know. i think you might be thinking of GRE instead. GMAT is actually a trademark of Graduate Management Admission Council.
HD Trailers
it seems that all tests that the ETS creates, (ie, SAT, AP, GRE, etc), it's always been catered toward education. however, this new "Information and Communication literacy assessment" seems to be catered toward careers, sort of like the certificate to prove you can use MS Word.
can you really see a college application asking what your "Information and Communication literacy assessment" score is given what it supposedly tells the college?
HD Trailers
Are you
Ruby Neural Evolution of Augmenting Topologies
If an interviewer asks you a question like, "What is your experience with X?", just reply, "You're not an engineer are you? And you've never written a line of code in your life, right?"
Because no half-decent engineer would ever ask a question like that. That's the mark of a gatekeeper/gargoyle HR rep. Or a really crappy engineer you don't want to work with.
The unqualifiable answer to that question is an emPHATic...
I agree with the PHAT part. You're FAT. n00b.
Sincerely,
You technically-inclined AOL web colleague
Not even George Lucas? Care to explain Jar Jar et al, then?
Do YOU qualify for a free iPod?
"...ETS and a group of colleges and universities have collaborated to create the ICT Literacy Assessment, a comprehensive test of ICT proficiency specifically designed for the higher education environment...
Have you ever:
1. Kissed a friend or stranger on their hands or their head/neck region as a friendly gesture?
2. Held hands with someone?
3. Had a date...
"
The only acceptable defense of scientific results is to say that they were the product of the Scientific Method.
Gurus don't sit on their ass monitoring systems. Wake up dude, you're maintenance. You're the janitor of the IT industry.
Gurus get calls like this late Saturday afternoon, "Where are you Monday morning? Nevermind. We need you in Chicago at 8AM."
You can't ace the tests without being smart in some way.
Likewise, you can't get a 450 on the (old) SATs without having some tubers in your family tree.
Geek slapfight!
I love it when the IT monkeys get all uppity and the code monkeys go on the defensive.
"I'm a real engineer"
"No you're not, you just plug cables into computer boxes"
"That's boxen, and you don't even know how to change your password"
"That's your job, IT monkey. My job is to write code"
"I write code"
"bash scripts are not code"
"Yeah, well you run Windows!"
"I also get paid more than you and have an actual career ahead of me"
"Shut up and join the Counterstrike server already"
Has anyone here been to a University in the past several years? Everything from Art to Business to IT Programs at Univs now have their own "Intro to Computing" classes that they force just about everyone to take because they're under the assumption that most students haven't used a computer before.
Now, I'm not talking classes about how to build web pages, or how to effectively utilize Google, I'm talking about "Ok, now class... this is a... mouse!" and there aren't ways currently to profeciency test out of them. I had to sit through my intro to computing class because attendance was required, and while I was there I kept myself busy tinkering with my linux server in my dorm room. The professor caught me once and asked what I was doing... I answered and they had NO clue what I was saying. I wonder who needs an intro class more.
A test like this, while ridiculous to those of us used to technology, is needed right now at the College level. They don't believe that students come to college now with basic computer skills, and the only thing that will convince them are test scores that prove this point. In the immediate future, at least these tests could allow those of us who know where the power switch is to skip those sorts of classes that are just a waste of our time.
Try http://www.ecdl.co.uk/ The European Computer Driving Licence is what this would like to be. The ECDL covers a level of computer literacy which most of the /. users would find laughable but for Jo Normal, and his employer, demonstates teh ability to have overcome the initial hump in the learnign curve.
init 11 - for when you need that edge.
Too bad the moderators have modded the parent down as off-topic.
They were not able to read but could see that all was bold, thus thought it was a GNAA troll or such.
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
that's more like a horde of morons who would pay to watch paint dry as long as it was George Lucas' paint.
And anyone else feel the great frustration of teaching their mother how to do a "double-click" and how long it took for them to pick it up?
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
Only if you promise not to bring up Communism.
i cant print!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! fix my printer!!!
arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
score: F+
Would you pass the Information Literacy Test?
... that pretty much answers the question...
IANAL, but I've seen actors play them on TV
Goes around.
Loyalty goes out the window when the incumberants ask of others what they would not do for themselves.
...after their dismal showing in the ACM programming contest >:-)
Because of his moustache, right?
First Name: John
Last Name: Doe
E-Mail: john.doe@example.com
Title: Mr.
Institution: Mental
Couldn't ETS be considered a monopoly? Don't you have to take one of their tests to pursue higher education at many schools?
My girlfriend temped for them one summer and said their campus is ridiculous opulant.
Information and COmmunication Literacy is not the same thing as tech skills. The test did a fairly decent job of testing for a person ability to locate, analyze, and use relevant information - hallmarks of an information literate student who can think critically.
Most college students think they "know how to use the computer" if they can shop ebay and download music. The thought of having to THINK about the information they are exposed to every day - or that they might have to THINK about whatever search they are going to do in search engine boggles thier minds...
There was a previous story on this last fall.
Preventive War is like committing suicide for fear of death. - Otto Von Bismarck
Only if you promise to never use an apostrophe to make a plural ever again. I mean, if you wrote Nazi's, why didn't you also write channel's?
It was not racism it was the science of the day aka eugenics.
Some AC posted this but the guy mentioned in the post that was plagerized, denounced his book and what it stood for a few years later, I guess he then went on to be one of the heroes in removing this science. This was before he Harvard started using tests he developed for admission.
The SAT and all theses others test do discriminate against thoses with a lack of education, and in a few exceptional cases do a poor job telling if the person would do poor in college.
If you come from a two parent family with educated parents who enforce teaching and reading then you will probably do well on the test no matter your race. The problem is some minorities do not come from that background and it is considered racist for me to have mention that.
You're right. Thanks for the clarification.
I was working in a COBOL shop in the late 1970s (I was young, I needed the money) and management decided it would subject all serious job candidates for the IT department of this little manufacturing company to a "programmer's aptitude test". But, before they did that, they wanted a baseline from the existing employees. I took the test.
I did well very well against the "average" of those who had taken the test (supposedly). But, what does this prove? Most of these kinds of tests look for the mechanical "put this here, put that there" process-of-elimination kinds of activities. The real challenge in using a computer as a tool is understanding how to generalize and extrapolate, skills I've never seen these tests assess.
We now have a generation of people who know how to do some things but have not learned why they system works--an insight that would make them an order of magnitude more effective with these tools.
The how vs. why wasn't explored in those tests from 25 years ago; I've not seen any evidence that tests of today explore it either.
-- Scott
...killed Mozilla. Am I illiterate, or are they?
my password really is 'stinkypants'
No. The peak of my intelligence is required just to post on Slashdot.
So long and thanks for all the fish . . . !!!
I get myself in trouble navigating around the KDE GUI too. I'll double-click icons, forgetting that a single-click invokes them there.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
Oh, I work hard for my basic £135K. Chicago? No problem - do you have my rate card?
AT&ROFLMAO
While I cannot quote line and statue number, technology literacy is part of Mr. Bush's No Child left Untested, oops, I mean behind.I teach technology classes at a high school in the US. Many middle schools are starting to sweat because of the requirements in this area. The main problem comes from kids from homes where they do not yet have a computer, and those kids who only know how to download music and chat. While the standards for this test aren't horrible, there are too many technolologically ignorant teachers still out there.
Truly, you have a dizzying intellect.
This problem is very easy to fix. Let's do what was done in the former USSR in order to make sure that only the ones who can go on to get more education when it comes to public schools. I went to one of the best schools in the United States (according to Newsweek) and I was astonished by a number of people who clearly did not belong there. I can only imagine what happens in the rest of the public schools that are ranked lower than mine.
It works like this. Everybody is evaluated in terms of academic performance after then 10th grade. Anybody with a GPA of 3.0 and higher can move on further. People who have GPAs of 2.6-3.0 can move on after a consulation with councelors and only if their GPA is going to improve from there. Students who have a GPA of lower than 2.6 must find education somewhere else (vocational schools, private schools, etc.). Why should we waste our taxmoney on people who are not willing to study to begin with? In my case, 60% of people who attended the 9th grade did not come back to the 10th. That was pretty kick ass, considering the fact that everybody who made it actually wanted to study and move on. Classes were better, people were better and teachers had more room to breathe. Some of them finally started teaching instead of policing the ones who caused problems.
When I came to the United States, I was surprised to find out that this education system was willing to keep everybody regardless of their academic performance and behavior. In order to get expelled you had to some something quite outrageous that even most troublemakers did not attempt to do on a daily basis. This system is basically designed to have as many suckers as possibe. WTF? I believe this is the core of the problem. However, I do not have a Ph.D in Education; therefore, the final word is not mine.
Anyway, after you 'take care' of students who underperform and caused troubles, make sure that people who graduate from high schools meet certain requirements and make Information Studies as a part of the deal. Some bright kids do not have computers at home and it is hard for them to learn about something they do not have. Make sure that there is a class that these folks can take in order to broaden their knowledge. Then add a programming course or two because in the future everybody will need to be able to do something like that. I can't tell you how many biology and geography students I've met who were not prepared to take even simple programming classes in college (part of their requirements in order to do some sort of studies). In Belarus we had a course on simple algorithms where students had to write simple programs using BASIC. Mind you, this was in a country where majority of households do not have computers! We had only one class with 20 computers where kids had to share machines. I am sure that in the States we can come up with a better alternative. Once you make classes smaller by, weeding out the ones who do not want to study anyway, our schools can spend more money per student.
I'll bite, though I know I shouldn't feed the trolls. You've got a right to try and make money, companies have a duty (to their shareholders) to try and make money. You have no right to make money though.
If you have a stupid idea or a bad product, yet you still got paid by the government if consumers wouldn't buy your crap, that could be expressed as a right to make money. I think we can agree that that is far more "communist" than the current situation where there is no such right, only the right to try.
Like you said, technology isn't the issue. Heck, I don't think reading comprehension or language skills play in much either to your examples. What they need is common sense! Anyone got a test for that?
If not, there's another venue the Educational Testing Service can go in to. =P
"The maker of the SAT and the GMAT -- has a new test called the Information and Communication literacy assessment."
The ICLA? How am I supposed to respect a test like this? The website is poorly done, the example question sucked, and to top it all off, the test doesn't even end with "AT"!
"When the atomic bomb goes off there's devastation...but when the atomic bong goes off there's celebraaaaation!"
In your age bracket, probably. In higher age brackets (especially those who graduated college before September Never Ended), this is much less likely. It's also probably correlated to economic bracket. And frankly, a depressingly large lot of college students have trouble with constructing a basic Google keyword search.
Explaining the basics in clear language (including why we need such weird jargon) might help get people started on the right track instead of confusing themselves into a frenzy.
The most essential reason for regular expressions as opposed to fuzzy language ties fairly fundamentally into the Choamsky language heirarchy. I really don't think you want to inflict that on someone who hated algebra in high school. There are similar problems with explaining the need basis for other forms of jargon, and I don't know how much linguistic research has been done to explain why field-specific jargons develop, much less the hackish glee in developing it. Pointing them to Humpty Dumpty might give some insight into the hacker attitude towards words, and if nothing else is "Classic Literature" with entertaining properties.
I've found that people who can tolerate neither algebra nor Lewis Carroll generally make for a waste of time for anyone to try and explain much of anything to; they are generally incapable of either rational or irrational thought, and are of little more use than machines for turning food into feces.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
This test seems like a desperate attempt to create a new market since their major existing markets --TOEFL and GRE are drying up big time thanks to the DHS.
Americans can be forgiven for thinking that the SAT is a major test for ETS, but the SAT is only used domestically within the US, TOEFL is, by far, the biggest cash cow for ETS and the TOEFL market has been utterly laid to waste in the last four years for a number of reasons although certainly the birth of the DHS is one of them.
You just need to understand and practice the following acronyms:
:)
a) RTFM
b) STFW
Ta-da!
Oh. If you don't know what they mean, and don't know HOW to find out, you've failed the test miserably.
They have a duty to *try* and make money for their shareholders, but success in that endeavour is by no means guaranteed.
Human beings can have rights (and with them, responsibilities). Whatever the courts might say, a corporation is NOT a person. It does not have moral values or emotions. It is not accountable for its actions. It is not alive.
If you want to think of businesses as people, then think of them as psychopaths.
Frist Post!
Dis I get it?
"I think that she is an excellent example of a real, average computer user."
"Linux is ready for the desktop"...in 2005.
"I'm a teacher and I've given a lot of money to ETS over the years in order for them to represent my knowledge in pass/fail form. CBEST, MSAT, CSET, RICA, CLAD. It's an expensive alphabet soup and it's proved nothing. I paid money. I took tests. I passed tests. Somebody invents more tests, I take those to keep my job."
ETS is to Tests, what MSCE is to Engineering.
Har! I, too, wish I had mod points!
Surely, "Free as in Spyware" is to become the newest Slashdot meme, now...
If you disagree with me on social issues, then it's pretty clear that you are a narrow-minded bigot.
Sample test:
Are you 1337?
yes
no
WHAT R U STOPID OR SUMTHING!!!!?
yes
no
Use 'w00t' in a sentence.
(Men)Type 30wpm with your left hand only.
Where does the green speaker plug go?
blue jack
red jack
green jack
CowboyNeal
Extra credit:
You have 1 comma, 1 single quote, 1 double quote, 1 question mark, and 34 exclamation points. Punctuate:
I WAS AT MY GFS HOUSE B4 AND SHE TOTALLY WAS LIKE MIKE U BITCH GET ME COOKIES AND I WAS LIKE BITCH WHAT YOUR GONNA GET A FATTASS HA UR TEH SUXORZ HAH HA w00t w00t
Please stop stalking me, bro.
I call bullshit!
You're using her as bait, Master!
I think many slashdot users should first take a literacy test before something as complicated as "Information Literacy Test".
Verbing words weirds language.
Heck, that's the best damn idea I've heard, in regards
to fixing our piss-poor education system, in years!!!
Wow! what a concept!
Is ANYONE with any ability to get this into national policy listening??
Does ANYONE know ANYONE with the ability? Get the ball rolling as we need this DEPERATELY!
Information and Communication literacty assessment?
hmm. I dub thee iClit ass!
Screw computer literacy. The overwhelming majority of the population couldn't pass basic literacy, period, and it's growing profoundly worse by the day.
- IP
Even more shockingly, computerized grading for essay tests is now being tested on several state tests.
You're assuming that human graders are actually doing a good job of scoring those essays. Are you sure?
Remember the days when Republicans were the party of fiscal responsibility?
I can state absolutely that I was not a racist in 1925.
It's AT 19:25, and what's with the military time?
Don't forget - *purpose* If you have no reason to use it, you won't try it. Slashdotters will play with technology just because it's technology - tinkering - but for many people, if you don't need it, why try it? People don't often try new things if there is no reason to , and they are otherwise busy, nothing to do with "courage". Are you a coward because you haven't rebuilt an old motorbike from scratch, or grown different variants of carrots to see which thrive better in sandy soil? Probably it's just because you have no reason to, you're not interested, and it doesn't solve a problem. If you needed transport to get to work, or needed to feed your family from what you could grow, then maybe you'd have a reason to do it. Same with internet/web services.
I'd say the people who put the site together are IT-illiterate. But I'm sure it works just fine on their local box on IE. Of course, that's only when they use a URL that starts out "file:\\\C:\" ...
[sarcasm=off]
F) Vote for the closest answer to what you believe, but complain about the lack of choices anyway.
Of course, that's ETS's business, so you should expect that. The real question is, (assuming it works -- and they do make money on it), what does it say about the state of such literacy, when folks need to pay someone else to figure out if people have it...
- "History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men" -- Blue Oyster Cult, 'Godzilla'
A university degree doesn't prove that one is smarter; a lack doesn't prove one is dumber. I went through school; my brother dropped out in his first semester because "they're all assholes!". The difference? Well, he's a terrible, antisocial pain in the ass to work with. A much better coder than I am, if you can get the right kind of work out of him, but there's a reason he dropped out of school.
I do agree that there's far too much vocational training. Hell, I supposedly went to a research university, but they taught us Java and nothing else. (Well, C++ for my first year, before they switched over.) No Lisp, no functional programming, just exactly what we'd need to know to become code jockeys. At least the Discrete Math professor rocked.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
I work at a phone support desk. When we ask people to power-cycle their computers, we have to tell them to power-cycle that little box under the desk, where they put the floppy disks in. Not the monitor.
Why, oh why, is this paradigm so hard to imagine? Take the (Monitor, Computer, Keyboard) tuple, and map it to the (Television, DVD Player, Remote Control) tuple. Why, exactly, is the latter so much easier to understand than the former?
Bah. Pet peeve of mine.
More on-topic, folks back in school used to blink and ask how on earth I managed to flick between windows, minimize them and so forth so quickly, without touching the mouse. They really thought that "Alt-Space, N" was magic. Someone once wrote that a single mouse move-and-click is equivalent to about eighteen keystrokes by a competent typist. The mouse is a good tool for some tasks, but it's frequently not even close to the right tool for the job.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Free w00t for everyone!
Please stop stalking me, bro.
Friend of mine is in law school. Goes to teach street law to poor, mostly Hispanic high school kids. He has forty students, twenty in a "we're going to college!" class (where the few white kids were) and twenty in a "holding cell" class. He assigned a one-page writing assignment, over three weeks. He got, I think, four or five back, none of which contained a majority of complete sentences. I could write better than that when I was in elementary school.
They're not stupid---they're very, very interested in knowing the nuances of search-and-seizure law and precedent---but they can't read, can't write, and can't do basic math. So, among kids, the original poster, lol, was Einstein.
I asked my parents why I learned to read by that age and those kids didn't. They said something about the fact that they read all the time, and so we had some kind of tradition of literacy. I was just depressed by the whole thing. I had this idea (I suppose it comes from my parents' Jimmy Carter liberalism) that those kids, hell, one of those kids was a brilliant diamond in the rough, who could be properly inspired by the right teacher and... no, none of them care.
Why is that?
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
One of the greatest moments in my early college career came when a professor said that he didn't care if we showed up or not; if we didn't learn what he was teaching, it was our problem, not his.
It was then that I realized I was truly no longer in high school, and I rejoiced.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Where I went to school, we had a "Q test" that tested if you needed to take stupid math or not. Basic arithmetic sorts of things. There wasn't an analogous test for English, though, and certainly not one for computer use. I suppose a basic level of math is required for some classes more than English is. Is it, really?
I dated a marketing major for a time. (She was mentally unstable, it ended badly, and I learned my lesson---marketing is fucking evil.) One of her classes consisted entirely of learning to use PowerPoint... and making a simple PowerPoint presentation. That was it! And there I was in these frickin' impossible algorithmic theory classes slaving away for the same three 200-level credits...
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Really, 1927 was the star year for eugenics, in America, at least. That was the year of Buck v. Bell, wherein the USA gained the distinction of passing forced sterilization laws before Nazi Germany ever did. (Well, it was before Germany was even Nazi, but you get the idea.) Go US!
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
They where paying students $25 to test this thing out at the library. The thing is pretty easy to take and only took about and hour and a half. Most of it was being able to search the web, the library, and online journals. The most interesting part was testing to see if you could select good sources of information. My problem with the test was that the examples and environments seemed very dated. The interfaces didn't seem like something you would find in the real world. The interfaces were a lot different then what I use to research.
Devise, Repair, Solve, Build
I just invented,
w00t b33r!
Please stop stalking me, bro.
Why the heck did I get modded 'redundant'?!?!?!?!
Took something like this once ..
It wanted me to run notepad so i went Start -> Run -> "notepad" -> Enter.
And the program gave me a fail. Why ? Because it wanted me to go Start -> Programs -> Accessories -> Notepad. How stupid is that ?
Lima India November Uniform X-ray
;)... nice!!!
I think it's important to note that, whereas basic math, vocabulary, and reading skills can be taught and tested in a bias-free environment, offering a test on computer literacy on anything but a professional level is discriminatory against the poor. I find it very telling that Slashdot's user base of mostly middle-class white guys hasn't touched on this issue yet.
Reports show that schools in areas of high poverty offer significantly less Internet usage in classes than other schools. Reports also show that students at high poverty schools are more likely to have never used the Internet. The digital divide is real.
In that regard, tests like this (which, if anyone actually made it through the demo, requires idiosyncratic knowledge about Web searching, drop-down menus, and following links) will only provide a larger gap between the "computer-fluent" and those who have the aptitude to be computer-fluent but not the necessary tools.
In short, the recent sub-$100 PC schemes being thrown around Slashdot will hopefully become more relevant to America's inner city schools as much as Third World Countries such as India and China. At its base level, equality must be measured as equality of opportunity.