I work at an Internet-based insurance company, and you would be surprised how many of the agents, all of whom use the computer every single day, don't know how to deal with basic little things. "My computer's stuck." "Have you tried to reboot it?" "How?" (Ack...CTRL-ALT-DEL, people!)
Saying that computer literacy is a non-issue nowadays is a fallacy. Making sure that it's taught at all levels of education is, if anything, more necessary now than it was when I was in school, and computers were just starting to really boom as something other than tools only programmers and nerds used.
However, I also believe that students need to be taught the same skills I learned growing up, especially with regards to mathematics and writing. They're not always going to have a computer in front of them (Palm Pilot notwithstanding). Sometimes, they're going to have to do something mentally, or physically, without the help of technology.
Even barring that, learning how to do the work the "long" way teaches HOW to think about numbers, and HOW to manipulate data. Very valuable skills to have.
For example, let's say I'm anti-guns. Therefore, sites that list information on how to purchase guns are, in my view, sites that need to be censored, so that my children cannot see them.
However, to a member of the NRA, that site is probably bookmarked, and would likely (and rightly) get very upset that it was censored by censor-ware.
EVERYONE on the face of this planet is going to have their own viewpoint on what is censorable material and what isn't. What gives the people who created the software the right to determine what should be filtered out and what shouldn't?
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I work at an Internet-based insurance company, and you would be surprised how many of the agents, all of whom use the computer every single day, don't know how to deal with basic little things. "My computer's stuck." "Have you tried to reboot it?" "How?" (Ack...CTRL-ALT-DEL, people!)
Saying that computer literacy is a non-issue nowadays is a fallacy. Making sure that it's taught at all levels of education is, if anything, more necessary now than it was when I was in school, and computers were just starting to really boom as something other than tools only programmers and nerds used.
However, I also believe that students need to be taught the same skills I learned growing up, especially with regards to mathematics and writing. They're not always going to have a computer in front of them (Palm Pilot notwithstanding). Sometimes, they're going to have to do something mentally, or physically, without the help of technology.
Even barring that, learning how to do the work the "long" way teaches HOW to think about numbers, and HOW to manipulate data. Very valuable skills to have.
For example, let's say I'm anti-guns. Therefore, sites that list information on how to purchase guns are, in my view, sites that need to be censored, so that my children cannot see them.
However, to a member of the NRA, that site is probably bookmarked, and would likely (and rightly) get very upset that it was censored by censor-ware.
EVERYONE on the face of this planet is going to have their own viewpoint on what is censorable material and what isn't. What gives the people who created the software the right to determine what should be filtered out and what shouldn't?