Computer's and I

I was surprised by a mention in the minutes in the last core committee meeting at my workplace. I was on leave and not part of the session but my name was included for the task of creating a test paper for entry level staff in computer literacy. I was to “help” put together a computer test. I was wondering what’s happening out here? I have limited computer knowledge, I have never appeared for any computer test in my entire life and given the fact that I am not a perfectionist, I tend to make do with the basics. If I get the things I need for a particular report or a good template, I am happy.

I just Google anything and everything I don’t understand. That helps me find out how others deal with a need. How was I supposed to know what to ask in a Computer Literacy test?

My view of the kind of computer literacy required is similar to this article I read on the web. The author says it in much better words.

I picked up the relevant parts here.

Computer Literacy
The common understanding of the term has been an ability to understand why and when to use a computer and how to use it. The specific skills and abilities that one had to demonstrate to be labeled "computer literate" have changed markedly over the years — more significantly, whether the how or the why was more important has changed tremendously.

Effective current definition for computer literacy - when to use a computer, how to choose appropriate tools, how to adapt to changing environments. The "technical" aspect of the skill set has been radically diminished, leaving the focus on understanding what to do and when to do it.

Today anyone who is able to read can, with a minimal amount of training, figure out how to use most application packages.

Becoming a legitimate "power user" for a specific software package takes a lot of time: time spent in reading, experimenting, and learning from your mistakes. If your work requires that level of expertise, then the time it takes to acquire it is well spent; if the job you have your eye on requires that level of knowledge, then you don't have much choice about acquiring it. It does bear pointing out, however, that your efforts have been expended to acquire specific skills (e.g., keystrokes, shortcuts, etc.), skills that may well be irrelevant if you have to move to another package designed to do similar things. When it comes to computers, some skills are undeniably important, but they are short-term — they will need to be upgraded with depressing frequency. On the other hand, while an understanding of concepts may not in itself get you a specific job or directly solve a specific problem, such an understanding provides a long-term, stable foundation upon which genuine skills must be based.

As I've stated, computers and computer software are a constantly evolving area. If we wish to become and remain computer literate, we need to realize that an understanding of what computers can and cannot do, of when to use them and when to avoid them, and of how our use of computers affects us and those around us, is much more important than "knowing" (memorizing?) keystrokes or option lists. Simplistically, what we need to do remains stable, how to do it is dynamic. Our package-specific technical knowledge will be (at least) partially obsolete in a few months when a new release of our software comes out; it will be almost useless if we change jobs (or schools) and have to learn another package because an Information Technology manager prefers that package and requires everyone to use it under the rubric of "compatibility". If we focus on basic concepts in our initial training, and understand the relationship between those concepts and how they can be represented by the technology, then we are computer literate today, and next month, and next year; if we focus instead on specific skills at the expense of concepts and understanding, we are computer-skilled, we can probably get a job based on those skills, and our knowledge will be out of date within a year or two, at most. Becoming computer literate is something we should have to do only once.


So, just what is computer literacy?

Computer literacy has two major components: an understanding of computer applications, computer hardware, and social and ethical issues influenced by computers; and sufficient skills or knowledge of application software to be functional in a computer-enabled environment. In a world of constant software evolution and job mobility, adaptation is a critical ability.

The field of computers and computer software is very dynamic in the sense that the tools that we use to interact with computers (the application packages) are constantly evolving, and the evolution causes change, sometimes radical change, in how we perform everyday tasks. However, we can also note that the basic reason that we use computers hasn't changed much since computers were first created — computers are great at storing and retrieving data very rapidly and very accurately. While it appears that computer software keeps changing, it's important to note that the underlying functionality of that software remains quite stable — it is still intended to allow us to store, organize and retrieve data and information. Knowing and understanding basic concepts and principles allows a person to be functional in a computer-enabled environment today and tomorrow. In the era of the World Wide Web, where so much data and information are available at the click of a mouse, being computer literate is an essential component of being information literate, which is in turn a key attribute of someone who has learned how to learn.


*http://cs.salemstate.edu/CompLit.htm