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From: taylor@hplabsc.UUCP
Newsgroups: mod.comp-soc
Subject: Re: What is computer literacy?
Message-ID: <1584@hplabsc.HP.COM>
Date: Fri, 10-Apr-87 18:13:22 EST
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Posted: Fri Apr 10 18:13:22 1987
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As a software engineer with 5 years experience with computer training,
and who has helped my intuitive, artistic mother become computer
literate, it's time to jump in to this discussion.  For the most part I
agree with this article, but there are a couple of things I'd like to
comment on, and then I have some contributions to "What is computer
literacy?"

I agree with the points made that amateurs are neither the best
curriculum designers nor the best teachers, at least not in a formal
setting.  This has nothing to do with computer literacy, but more with
teaching and training or, if you prefer, education vs. training.

>      One skill which seems particularly lacking, and particularly
> important, is curriculum design.

Agreed, as far as it goes.  Actually, curriculum design is another
problem-solving skill, with exactly the same steps as engineering
or community development or any number of disciplines (more later).
However:

>      First there is over-specificity. In the flyers that I have
> gathered from various institutions providing computer training in
> Vancouver there are any number of "Word Processing" courses, all of

I agree with the point made, which is that "seminars" don't teach
general understanding.  I hold, though, that short seminars should
*not* teach general skills - most of these classes are training, not
education.  The purpose of training is to teach specific skills - which
buttons to push, if you will - *not* general understanding or
knowledge.  If those flyers are from seminar companies, I submit that
those companies are doing exactly what they should; if, however,
they're from local colleges, the colleges are falling down on the job.

All of which begs the question of what computer literacy is and how
people are getting it, of course, but let's not mix up training and
education as well.  I'd be glad to correspond further on this topic
off-line.

Where the average person is getting it these days is mostly from these
training companies, who are not geared to provide general understanding, 
or from self-teaching.  Some, of course, are getting it from various 
colleges, but the colleges are so swamped, or pressured by companies with 
whom they are in partnership, that they, for the most part, are not 
providing education to beginning computer users, either - they're 
providing training.  So someone goes off and learns to operate Lotus, or 
Wordstar, or whatever, and the skills don't transfer.  (Companies contribute 
to this by limiting education budgets (time and money), too - it's all 
too common to find someone who can "only" spend 8 hours learning such and 
so because of either money or time away from the job.  And we wonder 
about American competitiveness?  But that's another story...)

I can't encompass the whole term "computer literacy" yet, but I think
there are two aspects of it without which a person can not be called
computer literate.

The first is an absence of fear - of the machine, of the software, of
the technology, of doing something wrong, of blowing things up...  I
would add perhaps a sense of adventure, but that may be going too far.
Is this a teachable skill?  I'm not sure, but I don't think so.

Second, computer literacy encompasses problem-solving skills, such as
those discussed in Polya's _How To Solve It_, and not necessarily with
reference to computers.  Analyze the problem, identify possible
solutions, select the best, implement, and evaluate whether it solved
the problem.  Unfortunately, the only place such skills are taught in
school is in math and maybe science courses.  Most everyone intuits
these skills, some better than others, and computers are an item that
are not very susceptible to intuition, not at first.

Also, a person is never going to *become* computer literate without
motivation.  Unless someone sees why it matters to them, in their life,
at this point, all the teaching in the world is so much hot air to
them.

One final point:  would you expect anyone to become "literate" in a
nonsense language?  We may be at this point with computers - there
are few consistencies from program to program, machine to machine, no
language to become literate *in* yet.  So computer literacy may not be
definable at all yet.

Barbara Zanzig