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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?"
I think everyone should be able to put together a system from hardware and install an operating system. We all know it isn't particularly hard to do (I'm talking about a self installing os like windows or suse, not one of those uber hardcore linux distros), but you gain an entirely different perspective on computing when you understand the basic concepts required to do so. It will at least demystify the basic idea of computing for the vast majority of americans. I am thoughly dissapointed in the concept of computer literacy. Using ms word and pressing the start button does not qualify as being computer literate. You wouldn't exactly call a first grader who reads word by word one word a second literate and ready for the world would you?
With the ever-changing technologies, the key skill no longer becomes knowing how to use any particular tool, piece of hardware or software, but rather becomes the ability to adapt and effectively learn how to use any tool or environment.
Not to sound too cliché, but Google and the Internet are at the center of this. Much like books eliminated the need for memorization and transmission by oral tradition, Google and the Internet revolutionize how one learns and adapts. Teach your students how to learn and adapt. Teach them skills on ways to search for information, ways to evaluate what information is good, and what is trash, and teach them how to contribute back information for others to learn from their experiences, good or bad.
To evaluate them, give them novel, creative problems and the tools to learn how to adapt to the environment, and search for solutions. Evaluate their ability to use the resources at their disposal to come up with their own solutions to the problems. This is infinitely better than training them to rote memorize solutions to static problems.
I'd like to see a day where a skill that is searched for on a resumé is no longer a specific ability with a specific tool, but simply the line "Fast and adaptive learner" or "Excel at creative solution design in novel environments." That's what I'd be looking for in an employee, and for future generations of technology users.
Someone says "our schools should make sure all their graduates are computer literate". People agree. What does this sort of literacy entail?
This post written under Gentoo-linux with an SCO IP license.
Scarily enough, thats all too true. My mom, who can barely use email, is the hosptial's "computer person". She's the only one willing to pull the plug and reboot it when it freezes up.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
First is the Ctrl-X/V/C. Make sure they understand copy/paste/cut. It is terribly useful and something that a surprisingly small number of computer users seem to know how to use.
READ DIALOG BOXES. This goes with the "no one from Nigeria" stuff. I can't tell you how many people I've helped with computers or errors or questions where the process of helping them consisted of "Did you read the dialog box?" "What does the dialog box say?" "So what should you do?" and that helped them.
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. That said, I wouldn't consider them computer literate. This is one of the reasons.
So you want to find a file my parents saved. Where is it? That's right... My Documents. Not a sub-folder, just My Documents. That's where there are a few thousand files. Why? Because that is the default save location. Unless it's not. Some programs (AOL, etc) like to save somewhere else. So files saved from those programs are in those folders. Good luck finding anything, especially with the cruddy Windows search function. Spotlight would work well, but then again I gave them Google Desktop and they don't use it (it's easier to just scroll through the list of 3,000 files).
Introducing them to a few basic file types (TXT, JPG, HTML, DOC, XLS, ZIP, etc.) would also be a good step. So would the idea that you can delete a zip file after you unzip it. A decent chunk of the stuff in my parents My Documents folder? Zip files and their contents that Windows or AOL unzipped for them. But since that process is hidden, they don't know to delete the ZIP files or what they are.
In fact, they don't understand files and e-mail either. When you get an attachment in e-mail (say a picture) and you choose to view it and it gets saved to the hard drive... what do you do the next time you want to view that picture? That's right, you go to the e-mail and RE-SAVE the file with the default filename (helpfully with a "(1)" or some such at the end to ensure you have tons of spare copies) and let the right program open up automatically again. E-mail is a foreign land from the file system for all they know. AOL and it's tendencies to keep it's own weird folders and such have NOT helped at all in this regard.
In fact, warn them against AOL in the first place. I can not tell you how many things I've given up teaching because of AOL.
I'll post more if I can think of it. But basic use of the filesystem (especially creating folder and how you can nest folders and use that for organization) is critical.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Kinda have to disagree, computer literacy is the same as regular literacy. The more literate you are the easier it is to switch context and still gain useful knowledge.
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.
Likewise a person who has worked in different enviroments (MS, Mac,*nix) using different tools, (text editors, spread sheets, media players,compilers) is more computer literate than a person who has only ever used their win-box to email. They may know every hot-key short cut and trick that Outlook can handle but they're not really computer literate if they can't send an email on a mac or linux box if they have to.
The more contexts/environments a person can work in, and the shorter time it takes to gain fluency in a new context, the more computer literate that person is.
Then again, I could be wrong.
I define "computer literacy" as I would any other use of the word "literacy". A person who can listen or read a language but can't express an original thought in it isn't considered 'literate'. Yes, I mean programming is required to be considered computer literate. Computers are nothing more than a decoder for instructions, if all you can do is cause it to play back someone else's stored commands you are a passive user in exactly the same way as a child sticking Barney videos into the VCR in their bedroom.
Yes, many people (especially in the uneducated nations of today's modern Western world) might be able to live a productive life only knowing how to operate a web browser but 'computer literate' they ain't. You can make exactly the same observation about someone who can't write a coherent paragraph, they too can often live a productive life in the lower classes of society, but illiteracy kills off most chances to better oneself.
And I can already hear some witless wonder getting ready to analogize about people not needing to be mechanics to use a car, blah blah. No everyone doesn't need to be able to strip an engine down but they should know where all the major parts are, the basic theory of operation, common failure modes, make a few emergency fixes, etc. You might not be able to write an office suite from scratch but you should be able to write a spreadsheet macro, a simple shell script or be able to at least have a shot at fixing a bug in a larger program that is really annoying you.
Democrat delenda est
Teach a man to be curious, and you'll be learning from him one day.
It's sad that we're often satisfied with step #2 and steps 3 and 4 are viewed in disdain.