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?"

Comments

It's all about context

[datafr0g]

You can't measure computer literacy without a context because "computer" is such a vague term these days and "computers" are used by many people for many different things.

FOr the average office worker it's knowing how to use MS Office. For the Hardware Engineer it means something completely different and for the software developer it's different again.

You can only be "truly computer literate" in the context of a particular field.

It's like asking for a "skilled driver" - skilled to what level? Skilled enough to navigate through suburban traffic or to compete in a Gran Prix?

Re:It's all about context

[WhyCause]

You can define computer literacy without context. In fact, I have taught literacy as such. My definition of literate would be:

1. Don't be afraid. If you don't know how to do something, poke around. You probably won't break anything.
2. Learn the rules. Save and Open are almost always under the File menu. If you want to change the font style, look under Format. Most common software sticks to an ad hoc Interface Guideline, and if you see the patterns, you can get almost anything done.
3. Know your history. In the beginning, there was the commandline. It worked differently than the windowing system you use now. Try typing 'help' or '?'. If you got there by accident, try typing 'exit' or 'quit'. Older windowing systems had the close button and/or menu in a different place. Look around the window and screen, then see Rule 1.
4. Figure out how to save. Data are no good if you can't look at them again. This should be the first progam specific thing you learn how to do.
5. Don't hesitate to ask for help. Find the help menu, read a manual, or ask someone for a pointer (not a held hand for the rest of your life).

Certainly, there are quirky programs and systems that require more investigation than the others (blender, I'm looking at you), but if you really and truly grok these points, you are computer-literate.

Your car analogy works against you here. When I climb into the van we have at work, I drive more slowly and cautiously because it doesn't work quite like I'm used to. The fact that I know how to look for the controls to start, steer, and stop means I am 'driving-literate' even if I have to hunt for the seat-adjustment lever every time I drive that monster. Just because I know nothing about lisp, and am thus unable to use emacs to it's full potential, does not mean I am computer illiterate; it means I am unfamiliar with this particular windshield-wiper control. I'll figure out how to use emacs eventually though, because I am literate enough to do so.

Re:It's all about context

[mrchaotica]

I don't know about that; I think there's a certain level of knowledge -- more than just knowing how to use MS Office -- that's required before you can call yourself "computer literate" in any field. To me, "computer literate" means that you not only know how to use the system, but you also know how to support yourself and fix problems. It doesn't necessarily mean being an expert, but it does require knowing the basic theory of how stuff is put together, as well as having the problem-solving skills to figure out the solution (through research) when you don't know it already.

Interesting anecdote: on my first day in my Statics class at Tech (a Civil Engineering class), the professor asked everyone if they were computer literate or not. Now, keep in mind that everyone including engineering students is required to own their own computer and take an introductory computing class (nowadays based on Matlab (for engineers), but a few years ago when I was a freshman it was Scheme).

I was the only person that raised his hand. When the professor asked why, I answered "because I know how to program the computer, and how it works internally." (It was apparently a good answer, because he found me a programming job for the summer, but I digress...) : )

Anyway, the point is, I could call myself "computer literate" while all the other engineering students couldn't because I was the only one who was also a CS major. In my opinion, it's having those kinds of skills -- or at least the ability to think in a CS sort of way -- that makes a person computer literate, even if they're an engineer (or manager, or whatever).

Re:It's all about context

[datafr0g]

The average office worker is not as computer literate as a software developer because generally, all they can do, is use their word processor, email and spreadsheets. While a software developer would be able use an IDE,compilers, debuggers and also be able to use a word processor to write a report and figure out their budgets on a spreadsheet.

Agreed, but I was coming from the point of view that the term "computer literate" is used so broadly that it requires a context to make any sense of what it actually refers to. There is no one single objective definition of computer literacy that everyone will agree on.

For example:
Computer literate to me means that one has knowledge of computer system architecture at the hardware level (where the actual "computer" computes) and that they can easily adapt their knowledge from one system to another.

But that's not the same as when a job vacancy is posted for a Receptionist to be "computer literate" yet because of the context of the job description, we all know that it really means that they're after a person who can use MS Office (or equivilant).

Re:It's all about context

[Paco103]

A bit overkill for most people, don't you think? Should people not be considered capable of driving a car if they can't build one from the ground up? Ninety percent of the world wouldn't be able to drive, and a cab would cost so much we'd all still be riding horses. This is basically the same thing.

My mom works on a computer all day. She can figure out how to use the new programs when the company switches. She knows how to protect herself from viruses, not to open random suspicious attachments, and can fix most simple issues (such as fixing formatting issues in her word programs). She can find her way around well enough to use OpenOffice.org when she learned on MSOffice. She could not program a "Hello World" application in anything though. She could probably make it show up on a web page (she used to code her website by hand after I tought her the basics, but that was years ago).

I, as well as most IT people I have worked with, would consider her computer literate. She knows enough to know WHAT questions to ask when she calls for help, and how to do what she is told by the IT guys when they respond without having to say "third button from the right, down 2". I can tell her to look for something along the lines of ___________. Such as, if I tell her to look for an address book, she won't completely overlook it because it's called contact list in her program. At most she'd ask "might this be it?"

People do not need to know how to program, or all the inner workings to be literate. You can get a drivers license without being a mechanic. A drivers license states (theoretically anyway) that you are car/traffic rule literate enough to operate a car safely and effectively. Although this isn't on the test, chances are you know to look for a gas station when the guage points to E, and how to figure out where to put gas in any car you drive, even if the door is not in the same place it is on your car.

I have to go along with this post for my opinion. http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=186509&cid =15391558

Re:It's all about context

[Fred_A]

If they actually were to teach students how to use wordprocessors in school, they *really* ought to teach them basic typography and layout as well.

Even if the only outcome would be to get rid of those Comic-Sans memos and letters it would be time well spent.

The following....

[ellem]

File Edit Blah Blah Blah Help

CTRL X
CTRL C
CTRL V

CTRL S

ALT F4 (for Windows)

Lef & Right click

Basic computer safety... stop clicking on everything, don't open attachments from people you don't know... no one in Nigera is sending you any money

The difference between Reboot and Logoff

Save often

Backup often

Then general idea of networking... not arcane TCP/IP, DHCP, DNS stuff... just the idea that other computers can be accessed by your computer and vice versa

TAB vs SPACE

Re:The following....

[MBCook]

I just thought of another one. Make sure to teach them about URLs when you do the web. Someone else touched on teaching them this, but let me give some specific things.

How do you go to a website? Do you know what the #1 search on Yahoo is? It's "Google". My parent's computers are set up with Google as the home page. Do you know how they get just about anywhere? Searching google. Want to go to "favoritestore.com"? Well you type "favoritestore.com" in the Google search field and hit Search then click on the right one that comes up. They also use bookmarks. That one took a LONG TIME to break. I can not tell you how many people I've seen with that one.

Also, what is a home page in your web browser? That's the company that sells you your internet service! We subscribe to Google. We never get a bill from them. We do get bills from Comcast for Internet. But that little logical inconsistency doesn't seem to occur to them. I think I've got this one through to my parents too, but I'm not sure. I know it is (at least in part) related to AOL. The fact that you can change this to whatever you want is important and should be mentioned.

The last one for now is a personal pet-peeve of mine. I run into this in the otherwise very smart and computer savvy people in my high level CS classes.

This - / - is a FOREWORD-slash

This - \ - is a BACK-slash

One leans forward, the other leans backward. The terms are NOT INTERCHANGEABLE. The mean DIFFERENT things.

Of course this wouldn't be a problem is MS stuck with / as a path separator for DOS just like UNIX used, but that's another argument.

Re:The following....

[weierstrass]

>Last, and most important UNDERSTAND THE FILESYSTEM. I've gotten my parents quite good at day-to-day use of the computer. It has taken YEARS.

The fact that noones parents understand the filesystem is an indicator of exactly one thing
THE FILE/FOLDER METAPHOR IS BROKEN
Yes, the whole idea of 'files' is only a metaphor. Even in Unix. A very useful metaphor, sure. But it's not necessary or helpful anymore for the average user.

It's great that files exist, and in *nix-likes are the basis for everything, sure. But the user doesn't need to see these pesky files anymore, they are just confusing him. He should know be one level of abstraction up - working with something we could call a 'document', for want of a better term. He doesn't need to know if his webpage consists of multiple files. It's just a document. If he has the same piece of content in multiple formats, he doesn't need to know that either. It's just a document. He should be able to preserve multiple versions restore points of his document, w/o worrying about having different files with different names. It's just a document.

Fact: most techies understand treelike structures well, and did even before hierarchical filesystems became common currency. For obvious reasons.

Fact: most people's mom encountered her first treelike structure the first day she typed a document in Word, and wanted to save it.

MS realized as far back as W95 that the filesystem hierarchy wasn't particularly intuitive to the average member of the W95 target market. Rather than do something revolutionary and innovative which would have made everyone's lives easier the last 10 years, they mucked around with it a little bit, made some cosmetic changes, tried to please both the new people and the experienced people, and ended up fixing not much, and breaking things which were at least consistent in DOS.

My dad figured out that since he had 2 versions of the folder 'My Documents', one contained in My Computer, and one not (on the desktop), one was storing his files locally, and the other was storing them somewhere else, not on his computer. He even renamed the folder in the C: drive "My documents here" so he could tell them apart. (on winME btw)

This isn't an obligatory MS-bash. IMHO, it's a lot more shocking that no linux distro/desktop manager, has tried to sort this out. They are the ones that have the opportunity to make fairly sweeping changes. Linux users would catch on fast, appreciate an elegant solution, and still be competent to see 'behind the scenes' to the actual filesystem if desired. The same goes for Apple to some extent, and for some slightly different reasons. MS themselves have their hands much more tied as to what they could change, now that everyone has 10 yrs experience of Windows doing it the dumb way.

In a previous slashdot story about similar stuff, someone said that their mom used a single word document to type everything, and printed out the relevant pages each time.

Older people are not stupid, but they are being made to feel stupid by stupid designers, programmers and documenters, and as technology becomes more important this is more and more damaging to their lives.

* to all the older slashdot users, computer able seniors, and slashdotters with techie parents, sorry to make generalizations but they are broadly true..

Re:The following....

[telbij]

The fact that noones parents understand the filesystem is an indicator of exactly one thing
THE FILE/FOLDER METAPHOR IS BROKEN
Yes, the whole idea of 'files' is only a metaphor. Even in Unix. A very useful metaphor, sure. But it's not necessary or helpful anymore for the average user.

I'm gonna have to disagree with you on this one. People have been using hierarchical paper files for hundreds if not thousands of years. It's a basic organizational system, and is a minimum for working sanely with large numbers of files. The confusing thing is that the user's files are saved in the same filesystem as all the system and application stuff, so the hierarchy itself is overwhelming. I can understand the need to separate those.

Older people are not stupid, but they are being made to feel stupid by stupid designers, programmers and documenters, and as technology becomes more important this is more and more damaging to their lives.

This is a common argument, but I think you underestimate how hard it is to make things usable. The trick is to make things as simple as you can but still have the necessary features. I think Apple has been hitting a sweet spot here for a while with iLife.

The problem is essentially that many many people do not have the patience to figure out a complex system. They approach a program with the desire to do one thing, and the only way they could be satisfied is if there is a big button on the screen that says "Do the Thing". However, that same user may potentially want to do 100 different things at different times, and they certainly won't be satisfied by a screen filled with one hundred buttons. Hence the purpose of menus, wizards, hierarchies, preferences and all the other complications us geeks know and love.

There are a large number of people who do not want to think about how to do something or where one might logically find some aspect of a computer program. These people get anxious just looking at a dialog box. They do not enjoy figuring things out.

I'm sorry, but you are not going to design an interface that meets the lowest common denominator and is still useful. It just ain't gonna happen. To get to that point what we need is full-blown artificial intelligence. In other words, a replacement for the techie that they call on the phone to tell them how to do something. It's so easy to blame the designer, and I agree a lot of interfaces are horrendous, but the reality is that there is a certain amount of irreducible complexity inherent any moderately useful general purpose computer system. People who want to do one thing and have no patience for learning any context should be given appliances that do the one thing they want. That's the only way to make things usable for them.

Interaction, information organisation, networking

[Bogtha]

• Basic interaction with a computer - to the point where they know the difference between backspace and delete and the difference between left-click and right-click, not to the point where they know particular key combos.
• Basic peripheral use - so that they know what printers and scanners are, that they need to switch the monitor on separately, etc.
• Basic interaction with a GUI - so that they know what windows are, what minimisation/maximisation does, what programs are, how to navigate between common window types.
• Basic file management - what loading and saving means, how to organise files into directories, the difference between CDs and the hard drive, etc.
• Surfing and email - these are the two killer apps for most people, and they aren't very intuitive if all you know about the Internet is how to spell it. Furthermore, teaching somebody to use the web enables them to do quite a bit, as many applications are simply being created as web applications these days.

The basic rule of thumb I would use is that if you've taught them with one operating system, and they don't have any difficulty accomplishing the same tasks with another operating system of the same basic design, then they've learnt the basic concepts well enough as opposed to learning by rote what to click.

They're missing the point.

[Chowderbags]

It shouldn't be about being able to use certain products or being able to do a specific task, the real goal should be teaching the kids to find out how to do things for themselves.

Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime. Teach a man to learn things for himself, and he'll be a hell of a lot more than a fisherman.

Best practices!

[zanglang]

Other than the normal Microsoft programs, a list of best practices would almost certainly be useful, i.e:

How to work on the system safely (think before opening email attachments)

How to browse safely (know how to spot phishing sites, avoid providing sensitive data, install a proper browser like Firefox)

How to take care of your operating system (defrag regularly, delete unwanted files), and

Basic security (be careful with passwords, instead of sticking them on the monitor)

As an educational goal

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

A literate person is one who can learn anything given time and opportunity, not someone who's read everything.

A computer literate person should be one who grasps a foundation of knowledge that prevents dead ends and allows learning whatever the current task requires.

The key concept would have to be that a computer is a playback device for software, that whoever controls the software owns the computer (yes, owns. Which gives you more control, being handed car keys, or being handed a root password?), and that some software is much better than other software. Teach that and you've cured all the people who think Internet Explorer is "the internet".

If you want to teach people to use a computer to commmunicate better, then teach them to communicate better. Outlining is a skill that is even more useful for web pages than it was for text. Good composition skills are indispensable. Old-fashioned "rhetoric" classes have a lot to offer about conveying and supporting ideas. Where text is considered obsolete, teach the "grammar" and "vocabulary" that filmmakers have worked out for multimedia works.

The one true test

[inu_maru]

Is to know at least one way to make clippy go. OS wipe out is my favorite.

Have a basic knowledge

[martonlorand]

Know what is acomputer, how it works on a basic level, CPU, Memory, Harddrive, Video/Monitor. A computer literate person should know how theese work together under the command of an OS, have a basic idea about what an operating system is and what is the different betwean an OS and an Application

IMHO if one knows these will be able to use basic applications (including MS Office if that is what he/she desires) and call him/herself computer literate.

Understanding that a car has engine, wheel, steering wheel, transmission is necessary to drive a car. Knowing the same basic things about a computer is the same.

Than if they are programmers, network admins, webmasters - they are not computer literate's any more. They are specialized pretty much like car mechanics...

An executive, administrative person etc. is computer literate if he/she knows this - otherwise they are trained monkeys^H^H^H^H^H^H^H users, and are afraid to do anything that wasn't in the training - in consequence they will be unable to use other programs that they are trained in.

Re:I know I am a bit hardcore with this, but

[detritus`]

But at the same time i can teach a monkey to fit the different shaped components together and put a disc in the drive. Seriously, i know people who've built computers that have no idea what the difference between PCI/AGP/PCI-X is and they'll blindly open attachments and download programs that offer great "weather forecasts". putting tab A into slot b is no big difference from double clicking an icon on the desktop. Explain it to them once or and most people can do it over and over without having any understanding. And installing an OS like XP does nothing to educate them. Once again its a simple matter of put disc in drive, press power, select yes a lot (Put in key, that part gets tricky) and then they have a full working machine. Unfortunately with the ease of new systems its hard to find a reason to learn the basics, like when i started with with my old Apple IIe and then later DOS machines. but then again most people dont need to know this anymore, as everything is so automated nowadays. Basic skills such as what is a program, what is an OS, etc would be the most important things i would teach a complete newbie. That and common file extensions and turn off "hide file extensions" seriously that has to be one of the biggest security issues in XP in my mind. paris hilton nude.jpg.exe is probably one of the more sucessful viruses out there

a programming language

[astrashe]

No one agrees with me on this, but I think that you have to know a computer language to understand computers. It can even be something like LOGO, for kids. I'm not suggesting that someone has to know a set of GUI widgets for a modern desktop or anything.

If you know a language, you know what an algorithm is, even if you don't know the word. And if you know what an algorithm is, you pretty much know what a computer is.

I'm a giant fan of that MIT vision -- LOGO for kids, extensible and scriptable apps for adults, cheap laptops for people in parts of the world where money is scarce, open information on the web, etc.

I don't have kids, though, and I've never convinced anyone that their kids would be better of learning LOGO than powerpoint. Everyone says the same thing -- you don't have to be an engineer to drive a car.

I was lucky -- I got to learn about computers with a KIM-1 single board machine, and timesharing on a PDP-10, reading books about games written by hippies. If I wanted to play a game, I'd usually have to port it from one dialect of BASIC to another. It wasn't really hard, and it's not really fair to call them ports. But you had to understand the code at least a little bit.

I think it would be a lot harder to learn from iTunes.

Re:a programming language

[MrNougat]

... I think that you have to know a computer language to understand computers.

Hurrah. I learned BASIC when I was 13, and got pretty good at it. Sadly, my family didn't have the money at the time to be able to afford anything computerwise after the Timex/Sinclairs and C64s all went by the wayside. At the same time, I was playing video games at the arcade. Because I knew a programming language, I understood that the computer in the video game was following a set of commands, and could imagine all the lines of BASIC that would accomplish the same thing. ... you don't have to be an engineer to drive a car.

You don't have to be an engineer, but it doesn't hurt knowing how the thing works. I've always insisted that the best way to teach someone how to drive a manual transmission is to start by describing how a clutch works. That clutch pedal - it's connected to something, you know? And when you press it down, something happens. And when you let it up, something else happens.

When you press buttons on your computer keyboard, those inputs are read by programming - and something happens. It's not just magic. Too many people, having absolutely no clue how anything works, just think everything runs on magic.

Interesting.

[SatanicPuppy]

Computer literacy is one of those things that covers a lot of ground. In my mind, this includes a basic familarity with hardware. A savvy individual should be able to plug in a new network card, or a new hard drive. These are not advanced hardware tasks. I also think a certain amount of hardware troubleshooting is needed; a user should be able to tell if they have a dead network conntection, or a dead monitor, or a dead computer (or a dead mouse...yes, I've talked to people who can't tell. One lady even triumphantly told me that not only had she replaced the mouse (four times, according to her), she had also replaced the mouse pad. Her problem was a mouse problem, and it was fixed by replacing the mouse).

As far as software, I think computer literacy means needing to be able to figure out a piece of out-of-the-box software. Not the ability to use word or office, or whatever, but the ability to sit down in front of an unfamiliar piece of software, and fiddle with it in an intelligent way. The ability to look up a manual and read it.

It's not about being a power user. Not everyone is a power user. Most people aren't, really. It's really, in my mind, just about not being helpless when confronted with something new.

Try stuff!

[kherr]

The biggest problem with learning how to use computers I've seen from neophytes is the fear of trying stuff. Everything I know about computers comes from wanting to find out how stuff works. I tinker and mess around and do stupid things and eventually figure out what things are and how they work.

Too many people are afraid they'll break the computer and resort to memorizing what they are shown. Since they only do the one thing they are trained to they are unable to grasp the underlying components and what it all means.

To be literate you have to tinker. Try stuff. Break things, get someone to fix them. Then try some different stuff.

Re:Try stuff!

[ottffssent]

Amen.

Since "computer literate" is just a nicer way of saying "speaks computer", it seems reasonable that we approach the problem the same way we approach literacy in natural languages. Children learn to speak by watching, emulating, screwing up, and getting corrected. Eventually they pick up patterns and learn to apply them in novel situations. This is the way most /. readers became computer geeks. We watched (or perhaps read in a manual), emulated, screwed up, and got spanked by the computer dutifully deleting everything we told it to. Eventually we figured things out.

This is not the way most people approach computers. And it shows.

I'm sick of car analogies, so I'm going to try a new one. Bear with me. A computer is like a wood shop. If you go in and play with the various pieces, you'll hit the chisel with the hammer wrong and it'll bounce and cut you. You'll probably cut yourself on a saw or two also. And that birdhouse you're trying to make? Crap. But you'll learn something. If, instead, you go into the wood shop because someone told you there's a hammer in there, and you can use it to pound nails, you'll never even see the mitre box.

I guess that kind of works.

Too bad learning language takes hours a day, for a year or so.

Try a Context Switch

[yancey]

Whenever I have a question like this, I try to devise a similar question from a non-computer perspective (a different context) to help me wrap my brain around the idea. This also happens to work especially well when trying to explain computer issues to those who are not computer literate.

For example, "What does vehicle literate mean?" A car, like a computer, is a single complex machine that the average person above a certain age is expected to know how to operate. So how does one become "car literate"? Because you know how to drive one vehicle does not mean you can operate a boat or airplane or the space shuttle. So "computer literate" probably does not mean that you can operate any computer, just the most common variety (e.g. Windows and Office). Even then, you might know how to drive an automatic and not a standard (Windows vs Linux).

Analogy is a great tool to not only improve others understanding of a given concept but also your own.

Just for fun consider this: Computer support technicians and doctors are similar in many ways. They are both supposed to be highly paid, highly trained, highly skilled, and highly knowledgeable about an extremely complex machine that they did not design or create and of which cannot possibly know everything about. Often, they rely on their limited experience to make a best guess about the root cause of the machine's particular problem and then follow up with lots of testing to see if they are correct or not. As you probably know, some computer support people, trained and certified or not, seem to have an innate gift for solving computer problems while others should never be allowed to touch a computer. Makes you think about your doctor, eh?

That's unreasonable

[DavidinAla]

That's like saying you should be able to assemble a car before you can drive. Or put a stove together before you can cook. The fact that you even think this is another indication that many of the people who work in IT (or have serious interest in it) don't understand what the end user really needs. A normal, everyday user should be able to get real work done easily without having to understand all of the jargon that you and I understand. It's absurd to expect him to do so.

David

Re:That's unreasonable

[theLOUDroom]

That's like saying you should be able to assemble a car before you can drive.

It's more like requiring someone to know how to change a tire, check their fluids, change their oil, and do a basic safety inspection.

He's not saying everyone should be able to design a Pentium.

At some level he's right too. Too many people on the road have no idea how a car works or what to do when the unexpected happens. Not knowing that the light on your dash that says "Brake" indicates the presence of a dangerous situation is just plain negligent. Same thing with bald tires, blown light bulbs, unadjusted mirrors, etc.

I only halfway agree with him though. A person should understand the key parts and what they do, just like with a car, a stove, whatever. They don't need to be able to build one, but they need to understand the difference between RAM and a hard disk. Too many people think that they can somehow not teach these concepts. It leaves to people with a fundamentally crippled understanding of what they're using. There are certain basic concepts that you simply have to know or you don't know what you're doing.

Re:That's unreasonable

[sfe_software]

That's like saying you should be able to assemble a car before you can drive...

There is a big difference here. The average motorist can get by without ever having to know the internal workings of the car. Cars come with warranties -- if anything goes wrong internally, someone comes out and tows the car, and fixes the problem while you drive a loaner if the problem was not your fault.

If you (for example) put Diesel fuel in a gasoline car, I doubt your warranty would cover it. If you failed to shift properly (redlined the engine RPMs), the warranty would also not likely cover the repairs. Some level of knowledge is required to operate and maintain an automobile.

Computers aren't much different. There is an expected level of knowledge required to operate a machine this complex. If you fail to meet this requirement, and therefore harm the machine, no warranty covers this.

Granted, most problems (viruses, malware, etc) don't physically harm the machine; however the repairs involved do cost the user real money. The only difference is this: the State requires that you learn certain rules before you can drive a car, where anyone can operate a computer regardless of their ability to do so. Cars can easily cause harm if operated improperly, where computers cannot. This is why there are government requirements to operate a motor vehicle, and not to operate a computer.

In other words, one should learn to operate a computer in the environment they intend to use it. If one chooses not to do so, they only hurt themselves and their own investment. Buying a computer is no guarantee that it will be usefull to you without some effort. The car analogy simply doesn't work, because when you are in control of a 2,000 pound machine, you are putting lives at risk; thus, governments usually restrict operation of such vehicles to those who can prove their ability to do so (eg, driver's tests, etc).

Failure to learn to properly operate a computer only hurts yourself, thus no such rules are required. For the same reasons, there shouldn't be any such rules in place to operate a computer. A teenager operating a computer isn't going to cost me my life if things get out of control as could be the case with a car.

This is why I find the car analogy useless.

Re:I know I am a bit hardcore with this, but

[An Onerous Coward]

Back up a bit. I don't think putting together a computer is either strictly necessary or strictly helpful. Once the person has put it together, and installed the OS, they've got this screen staring at them, asking them what they want to do. And they'll have no idea.

I can suggest several branches of computer literacy:

1): the ability to interact with common GUIs. Know what a mouse is, be able to click it and make things happen. As a bonus, add right-click (or whatever the hell you Mac people do). Learn to read dialog boxes and respond to them.

2): Learn to open common applications, and interact with common applications such as a web browser and a word processor. Know what a file is and how to save one. Know what the directory structure is and at least one way to navigate it.

3): Absolute basic hardware! Be able to take your computer apart, move it to a different room, stick all the things in the back in, and have it work as it did before. Knowing the various jacks by sight might get bonus points, but isn't strictly necessary.

4): Regular maintenance. Know what a virus is, and why you have to keep your virus definitions up to date. Know what a patch is, and why you're supposed to install one.

5): More theory. Learn basic technical concepts, like what an operating system is, what an application is, the difference between memory, hard drive, processor, networking.

6): Internet basics. Understand that when your computer loads up a web page, it's actually talking to another computer. Understand the concept of "bandwidth" (using a hose analogy if needed). Understand the difference between the Web and the Internet. Know that computers identify each other by numbers known as "addresses", and that the domain names are simply a way of mapping from memorable names to those numbers.

7): Security. Know what a firewall is and what it does. Understand why you don't run attachments sent by random people. Have some idea of what constitutes a good password.

I think if you know all this, it would be a rather stingy society that wouldn't call you "computer literate". Your approach would probably go a long way towards getting some of the concepts down, but it's only a starting point.

An old saying.

[niteice]

It's been said that one understands something best when they can teach it to someone else. Teaching may not necessarily be required in this case, but I'd say that if you can fix a typical fucked up computer (IE, no firewall, but no pr0n sites) non-destructively, then you have a pretty good handle on things. And I mean really fixing it, not just reinstalling Windows into a new folder.

It's simple

[Khashishi]

A person needs to know enough to RTFM.

What I consider to be computer literacy

[gujo-odori]

What do I consider to be computer literacy?

A good set of the basic skills others have mentioned, and one other key skill:

The ability to solve, or at least attempt to solve, most problems by yourself. That is, if something's wrong, you can describe the problem well enough to put some relevant search terms into Google and find some likely answers. The extent of your problem solving skills should not be asking the sysadmin.

I've met countless people who were very good at using a category of application software - Photoshop wizards, spreadsheet aces, etc., who could only use a computer as long as it was functioning normally. If there was even the slightest abnormality, they were stuck. IMO, they were not computer literate, because they understood only the applications they used; they did not understand computers.

Now *that* is a definition of computer literacy: you have a working understanding of computers and the OS you use and can solve problems when something is wrong.

Ordinary literacy would be a good start

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is a bit much to ask of schools today.

It's been said before but I'll say it again

[Anonymous Coward]

Understanding what file systems and files are. It's not that difficult and it makes a big difference in moving a user's perception of a computer away from 'magic box' to machine. A lot of people seem to switch off and resist learning as soon as you try to explain it though...

And abilities that carry

[cgenman]

I'd add in a few basic skills to consider someone computer literate.

Program agnosticism: They should know roughly how chat programs work. This doesn't mean AIM, this means that they know enough that they can walk up to any chat system and make it do useful things. Same thing for e-mail clients. Same thing for Browsers. You should be able to give them a laptop loaded up with Windows or Knoppix or SkyOS, and they should be able to quickly muddle their way over to myspace.com.

Hardware knowledge: This is your power supply. When it breaks, things tend to smoke. This is a hard drive. When it breaks, it makes a "click click click Screeeeech!" noise. This is your graphics card. Also known as the hole you'll be pouring your money into for the rest of your life. I'm not saying everyone should have memorised the jumper settings on their motherboard. But they shouldn't be afraid to open the thing up and look or make changes.

Some Scripting: I don't care what scripting language. I don't care if you're talking Perl, Word macros, applescript, AutoHotKey, a command line script, an e-mail filter, or Java. If they can write things in a scripting language, even a completely visual handholding one, they're good. You don't need to fully program or compile. You don't even need to be that great at it. You just need to be able to think about the problem in terms of "how do I tell this computer how to do something."

Re:And abilities that carry

[Kluenitou]

From Merriam Webster's Dictionary:

literate - 1 a : EDUCATED, CULTURED b : able to read and write 2 a : versed in literature or creative writing : LITERARY b : LUCID, POLISHED c : having knowledge or competence

While I agree the skills you list are really good ones to have and that everyone should possess them, I think it is far beyond what should be required of literacy. As defined, literacy is simply the ability to read and write. This implies at the most basic level. It doesn't include understanding metaphors and hyperboles, it doesn't include many things that we seem to think the average person in this world should understand in order to be able to survive, it is the bare minimum they need to know to get by. If you were to come upon someone who was considered only literate in the English language, they would probably be able to read and write at the level of a fifth grader. Clearly not the most ideal for the world, but they would likely be able to read a shopping list or basic forms required for living. Likewise, computer literacy should simply include the basics. While I applaud your desire for everyone to know scripting, the fact of the matter is that very few computer users percentage wise know/understand how to do it and I think it is above and beyond what should be required to consider someone computer literate. My mother for example. She is able to send/receive email, type at a reasonable pace, browse the web and purchase things online, etc. and I would consider her computer literate--she is able to get by in her daily routine with the use of the computer and not call me every 2 seconds confused about everything. She could never in a million years start to get her head around writing a script in Perl. For God's sake it's kind of a bitch for me to get something like REGEXs right the first time and I'm a pretty seasoned programmer. I can't even imagine trying to explain those bad boys to my Mom or any "average" computer user for that matter.

I think computer literacy is much simpler and basic than you are making it out to be.

Not really...

[John Whorfin]

Not assemble the car, but have a basic understanding of how it works. Engine, air filter, oil goes in there... water in there.... Do you know how to change a tire?

Yes, I also believe a "normal everyday user" should understand what a "hard drive" is and by pulling it out and looking at one it might help them visualize just what goes on in that big scary box on their desk.

Computer Illiteracy

[Bent Mind]

Strangely enough, at least for myself, I'd have to say it's easier to define computer illiteracy. You know, when you think to yourself "I wish they taught basic computer literacy in schools".

Honestly, the basics haven't changed since the GUI became commonplace. Here are a couple of things that are good to know:

• The monitor is part of the computer, not the computer. It took my Mother ages to understand that turning the monitor off didn't turn the computer off.
• Icons initiate actions. I have a user at work who thought all those little pictures were just to make the screen look interesting.
• Automate repetition. Same user as above, he still doesn't understand cut and paste.
• Remember where you saved that file. "I can't find my file" still seems to be the most common complaint.

From there you can break it down into more specific areas. For example, Internet, Office, Technical, etc. I know a lot of people consider Internet to be part of the basics. However, it is possible to be computer literate without knowing anything about the Internet. A friend of mine is a retired programmer. He definitely knows his way around his system. He has also taught me a thing or two when it comes to writing a script. However, he is not interested in the Internet. I'd hardly call him illiterate. I've also known a few of engineers that could do some truly amazing things in CAD. However, they don't have a clue when it comes to word processing.

Just a final thought, stay away from anything vendor specific. I took computer information systems in high school and college. Back then the basics were WordPerfect, dBase, and Lotus. After receiving my Associate, I realized that it was all a waste. Everyone wanted Microsoft. I wonder what they will want when my daughter graduates.

Why stop there?

[grahamsz]

In theory I can build a transistor from silicon, a logic gate from those transistors, a cpu from those gates, and from there build an OS and software to run on it.

In practise it would take me a lot more studying to actually pull it all together, as I do Java programming in my professional life. But I find that knowing the levels below where I work give me a definite advantage.

Re:How to use non-MS systems

[klang]

Level zero is realizing that

The Computer is not the big box on the table
The Harddisk is not the big box under the table
The Color of the box does not matter
It's not "how many RAM's" but "how much RAM"

Level one is realizing that

Text editing is not Word
Spreadsheet is not Excel
Presentation is not Powerpoint
Communication is not Outlook
News is not Explorer
The Internet is not WWW

i.e. realizing what you don't need a specific program to fullfill a specific task.

Not about computer itself

[hdante]

Computer literacy is not about understanding the computer inner workings. When a buzzword like this is targeted toward children, one should obviously assume that it has nothing to do with techicalities. In particular, most of those children won't ever have a job related to computer science or computer engineering. In this sense, the answer gets a little simpler (well, not much), because we can understand a computer just the same way as a blender or a car. The blender is used to blend food and the car is used for transportation. And the computer, is it used to compute ? Well, this is where things get more difficult.

People need to learn how to deal with computers, because computers have taken place of other, (theoretically) less productive, tools. In society, computer is not really used as a calculator (although for a college student it may be the physical part of Matlab). A computer is pretty much a typewriter. A computer is something you need to (not so) quickly comunicate with people that you work with. A computer is also a simple interface for you to find the movie you want, the book you want, etc. Finally, a computer is a place where you can find some extra information that your "non-virtual" world doesn't have (like, how people cope with the climate in Siberia, or something). And what one should learn about computers, then ? Computer literacy, then, becomes just a bureaucratic process. Since some technician decided that the user interface would require that you understood files, copy and paste, the close button, virus, you have to learn those things. Since the software that runs everywhere is Microsoft Word, one must learn how to use Microsoft Word. Since the software that... (fill in here) one must learn Internet Explorer/Firefox/Outlook/Skype/MSN/etc. Further understanting of the computer isn't really necessary, the same way people don't really understand how a car works (although the most people tries to abuse your system, more you or someone in your group should know about computers).

Now, you may think that a computer was about to bring useful information. You may think that a computer is about making calculations/decoding Nazi codes during WWII/bringing world peace/enlightening people/etc etc etc. Well, this is true because anything that calculates so fast can be used by humans to do those things. However it has nothing to do with computer literacy, as expected by society. A single person opinion has nothing to do with what society wants (even mine, yours, etc).

So, what is computer literacy ?
- know Word
- know Internet, e-mail
- know files, file formats
- know CDs, DVDs
- know malware
- overview of computer hardware

What computer literacy is not ?
- Know linux/windows/control panel/video resolution
- Know python, visual studio, assembly
- Know video card/modem/SATA controller

But it IS magic!

[meringuoid]

When you press buttons on your computer keyboard, those inputs are read by programming - and something happens. It's not just magic. Too many people, having absolutely no clue how anything works, just think everything runs on magic.

What is magic? Words and symbols of power that shape the world according to the will of the magician. The magician speaks the right magic words, and draws the right sigils, and obtains the desired effect.

Meanwhile, the INT 8 half-orc barbarian doesn't have the faintest idea what all the runes carved on his battleaxe actually do. He doesn't care. He knows the end result is a +1 to hit and that suits him just fine. Neither is the ranger concerned about exactly how these enchanted bracers improve his aim with a longbow; they just do. Only the wizard needs to worry about the details.

And what is programming? Words and symbols of power that shape the computer according to the will of the programmer. Type the right instructions, give the right command arguments, and obtain the desired effect.

Ever created an infinite loop? Had a recursive process go berserk on you? Made a small mistake while invoking rm -rf? Yeah. Pure 'Sorcerer's Apprentice'.

We are the nearest thing to magicians that has ever existed in reality. Our spells work and are truly powerful, our mistakes cause incomprehensible chaos, and when one of us turns bad then sometimes the whole world can suffer the consequences. No wonder the muggles treat our creations like they're the mysterious products of a magical power beyond their understanding: that's what they are.

Contrapositive

[dhasenan]

You have to be computer literate to be a CS major. Otherwise you'll fail most of your courses.

And the other students most likely were too eager not to mark themselves out in case they got extra work.

Re:context: education

[adamjaskie]

Troll? Why?

What you claim to be "lower middle" is what I think kids should end up with by the end of high school, at the very least.

Re:context: education

[lightning_queen]

Yes, a student fresh out of high school will almost always fall into the "lower-middle" category on this list. But you forget something: they more than likely grew up with computers, or had access to a computer of some sort from a very early age. You're talking 15 years of using a computer here, even if it is what many people consider "just the basics." There are many adults that don't even know how to turn on a computer, and many more that know how to turn on a computer but don't know enough about computers to know that anti-virus is typically a good thing. Just because they're 30 or 40 years old and has a college degree, doesn't mean that they'll know as much about computers as the 20-year-old that just graduated high school.

It's also a fact that kids adapt better to new things easier than adults. That's why adults seem to need a lot more training on somethings. Sit an 8-year-old in front of a computer running Linux after having him used to Windows and he'll find his way around the new OS before you're done explaining where everything is to the adult. So, by the time he graduates, he could be running scripts and compiling programs and add-ons for an OS that his "teacher" barely knows how to navigate.

Computer Literacy

[g0bshiTe]

I would say that just bieng able to use MS products does not make one computer literate. Could said person navigate Windows using a Command Prompt? I think computer literacy should be judged not by what is known by the person, but rather how quickly they could adapt to a new peice of software, or a different OS.

When I first began using Linux, I was dumbfounded and felt like I was just getting into computers, turned out after a week of using it I could navigate well using a term window, and even learned how to find what I was looking for.

Re:context: education

[jp10558]

I disagree - the high middle to high spectrum listed is really getting into analysis/integration and policy skills - not something directly needed to use a computer effectively. It's like expecting car users to be able to make a business case for a certain model of car to assisting with a new car model design. I dare say most people manage to buy and operate cars for their entire life without even being able to pick out a car on more than the look of the car and possibly claimed gas milage.

High School level ought to be equivelent to the level of using a car or a washing machine - that is some idea of what maintanience needs to be done when, or where in the manual that is listed, and how to get basic stuff done.

Typing up things in Word, using e-mail, electronic filing do not require any of the skills beyond the listed lower bound, and that's all that's necessary in most jobs.