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What Should One Know to be Truly Computer Literate?
rbannon asks: "Computer literacy is becoming an increasingly used term in education, and more and more schools are being asked to set computer literacy goals for their students. Unfortunately for too many, it means being able to use Microsoft products, and that's all. However, I see it much differently, and I cannot help but think that computer literacy is all about using computers to be able to communicate more effectively. With that in mind does anyone have any recommendations for computer literacy goals, and how to measure them?"
Pretty much "ditto that" in my opinion.
Rather than teaching particular program details, just teach what the different types of programs do; how they all basically operate the same within type if well-designed.
A person cannot be considered "computer literate" unless they can sit down in front of just about anything they might reasonably encounter and be able to get at least rudimentary stuff done. Learning just how to drill down a specific system's menus (or across "ribbons" if they ever appear) to the exclusion of alternate methods is almost worse than no education at all.
What's wrong with using bookmarks? Perhaps you should say overuse of bookmarks without any sort of organization is bad, but bookmarks by themselves are not. I'd say the real problem here is the browser (any browser). When I'm reading a book, a bookmark is temporary to keep my place when I come back to the book. Once I've come back, the bookmark is gone. Perhaps browsers need a single-use bookmark concept?
Organization of bookmarks is painful in most browsers. Why not couple a bookmark system with meta data from a search engine to automatically categorize your bookmarks? That would require some work from the search engine to categorize a web site, which could be difficult. A manual tagging system would be a good first start, especially if it was easily searchable (the idea of bookmarks as menu items just isn't going to work in the long run), but the fundamental truth about any manual organization system is that users aren't going to use it. Right now, I'd love to have a combination of IE7's "Favorites Center" and Firefox's Bookmarks Sidebar. The former shows and hides like a menu, but in the normal sidebar place (it can be pinned in place, but my point here is that I don't want something taking up valuable screen space when I need it only infrequently). The latter must always be visible to use it, but has a nice search feature. If IE7 would put a word-wheeling search on their Favorites Center, I'd be a happy man.
It'd also be nice to have a better history view, as well. I might remember that I visited some page on Sunday, but unless I can remember the title of the page I'm still going to have to manually search through the history. Firefox is better about this, but search results don't tell me when I visited a page.
It's also an invalid argument, as DOS used \ for a good reason. At the time, DOS (and CP/M on which the concepts of DOS were loosely based) used / to specify parameters to applications. Since / was already in use, \ was chosen as the path separator. If they had used - for parameters, they probably also would've used / for path separation, but then again they may have gone with : like Apple. / is really only universal as a path separator today because of the web (or more specifically, URIs). Maybe it was chosen because of its *nix heritage, but that just reflects the experiences of the people writing the original RFCs rather than some intrinsic value of / as a path separator.
To make matters worse, Windows Explorer, Internet Explorer, and Firefox (and anything that uses the standard file dialog common controls, as those embed Explorer) don't much care whether you use / or \. Try it out. Open up the run box and type "c:/program files". It works. Open up IE or Firefox and type "http:\\slashdot.org". That also works. so yes, you can interchange / with \ more or less indiscriminately (cmd.exe cares, but are your parents really going to use cmd.exe? I didn't think so ...).
I work at a university, and we recently came up with a "KnowIT" program. This program teaches digital literacy (defined as "helping students learn how to use multiple computer tools effectively), and has a specific set of goals:
GOAL 1: Students will be able to recognize, articulate, and characterize what they need to know as they approach a problem, project, writing assignment or other research task.
GOAL 2: Students will be able to access needed information effectively and efficiently independent of form or format.
GOAL 3: Students will be able to evaluate information and information sources critically.
GOAL 4: Students will be able to use information effectively to accomplish a specific purpose as well as to retain selected information as part of their accumulated knowledge.
GOAL 5: Students will be able to manage and organize information effectively and efficiently using information technologies.
GOAL 6: Students will be able to produce and create structured electronic documents that successfully express their ideas for a specific audience and situation.
GOAL 7: Students will be able to manipulate and use qualitative and quantitative data and aural and visual information using information technologies.
GOAL 8: Students will be able to collaborate appropriately and effectively using information technologies.
GOAL 9: Students will be able to successfully communicate produced content using information technologies.
GOAL 10: Students will be able to participate as informed members of the academy who understand major legal, economic, social, ethical, privacy, and security issues related to information technologies.
More info: http://www.colorado.edu/knowit
While this is specifically geared towards university-level students, it is just as easily applicable to any computer-using group.
I've got an ECDL. It's Microsoft all the way.
I've also got an A level in ICT. It's Microsoft all the way.
I've also got a CLAIT certification. It's Microsoft all the way.
The MCSE I'm taking, well. I think you can guess that yourself.
Trouble is, these are the qualifications employers look for. I can roll out Cisco qualifications, Macromedia certifications and a perfect portfolio and they go "Oh, you're not qualified in Microsoft".
How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
Google for lshort.pdf , that should get you the doc.
I've used it numerous times for university assignments (CS course in Univ. of Southampton, UK).
Also have a look for bibtex, its a very nice document reference organiser used in conjunction with latex. It's a bit complex, but worth the effort imo.
I need a new sig...