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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.
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.
I work for the department of a community college that teaches computer skills to adults who are seeking entry level jobs. Our clientelle are generally funded by one of half a dozen different State grants. We've got a proven track record of taking persons off State assistance programs and turning them into taxpayers.
In this milieu, I think "computer literacy" can be regarded as a continuum with definite upper and lower boundaries:
Note that it is entirely possible for someone with extensive programming or sysadmin skills to score pretty low on this continuum. I have met such people. It almost seems as though some people can learn to shoe a horse without ever learning the basics about how to ride one.
One of my... well, in the USA I guess would be called majors in college... is Information Science, which we students describe as a kind of Computer Science Lite. Nothing like the hard work people in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science put in, anyway. However, people here are being taught about several kinds of computer literacy:
At least there's Notepad++ for us who know that it's there.
Anyway, that's why we're starting a club which may well, depending on the interest, develop into an informal parallel study. There are enough of us who know enough about many different areas and who are willing to learn more. So we plan to:
We're sure we'll get more ideas in time... but I meant this to show at least some of the differences in our views on computer literacy as compared to most of our teachers'. On the other hand, we can expect some of the other kind of teachers to join our courses, so not everything is lost in advance.
Ignore this signature. By order.
The basic computer skills include:
Basic computer hardware knowledge
Knowing how to fix basic problems with a computer. In some computer labs, the students would "reserve" desktop systems for themselves by turning the brightness all the way down or by loosening the video cable. Other students would just assume the machine was broken and send a fault notice to the helpdesk.
Basic filesystem knowledge - how to create/delete directories, move and copy files. Being able to use CD-ROM/DVD burners, USB keys
Basic keyboarding skills - being able to write punctuated text in a notepad style
text editor.
Basic computer communication skills - knowing how to receive, send, forward and edit E-mail. Understanding of mailing list etiquette. For large corporations, people would blindly use reply-to-all when they have received an E-mail from a mailing list that they were added to by default and tried to unsubscribe.
Basic workdprocessing/spreadsheet skills - being able to load, edit, print and save files, and export these in a variety of file formats.
Basic webpage authoring - how to create webpages with images, hyperlinks and text.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
I pity the foo that isn't metasyntactic