[Yr7-10it] girls, IT, computer literacy

Mon Mar 31 15:26:33 EST 2008

Here's a bit more of what I think we're missing 

Information fluency, rather than information literacy 

http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/pub7006f.pdf

not that I'm fussed about the terms per se, but the notion that "skills"
are not enough, is a key here 

Also relates to the idea of doing more than "black boxing" the
technology as an unknown which we use for various "higher order"
purposes

. 

 I know "I don't focus on the technology"  sounds noble - and seems more
enlightened than an unhealthy fascination with techno stuff - but I'm
interested in how the absence of underlying understandings compromises
innovation in the medium

Eg I wonder if its like a person saying I don't focus on the words in,
say, a video clip, just the overall meaning  - since I'm a 21st century
learner

- that's fine - but of course we'd all want to know, if you had my
student - can you still write something worthwhile?  

We'd see the gaps there  -- we have a clearer idea of what traditional
literacy entails - and would only  reluctantly embrace video literacy as
an *alternative* to print literacy - we'd want most kids to get the
traditional skills as well 

we don't seem to see that clearly with digital media - we make trade
offs about what digital literacy means without sensing what we're losing

eg can we do more than post on each other blogs about how the world is
changing (sorry, shifting)  

can we create tools? Can we understand it all the way down, at least in
principle?  

http://www.nap.edu/html/beingfluent/es.html

Generally, "computer literacy" has acquired a "skills" connotation,
implying competency with a few of today's computer applications, such as
word processing and e-mail. Literacy is too modest a goal in the
presence of rapid change, because it lacks the necessary "staying
power." As the technology changes by leaps and bounds, existing skills
become antiquated and there is no migration path to new skills. A better
solution is for the individual to plan to adapt to changes in the
technology. This involves learning sufficient foundational material to
enable one to acquire new skills independently after one's formal
education is complete. 

     This requirement of a deeper understanding than is implied by the
rudimentary term "computer literacy" motivated the committee to adopt
"fluency" as a term connoting a higher level of competency. People
fluent with information technology (FIT persons) are able to express
themselves creatively, to reformulate knowledge, and to synthesize new
information. Fluency with information technology (i.e., what this report
calls FITness) entails a process of lifelong learning in which
individuals continually apply what they know to adapt to change and
acquire more knowledge to be more effective at applying information
technology to their work and personal lives. 

     Fluency with information technology requires three kinds of
knowledge: contemporary skills, foundational concepts, and intellectual
capabilities. These three kinds of knowledge prepare a person in
different ways for FITness. 

*	Contemporary skills, the ability to use today's computer
applications, enable people to apply information technology immediately.
In the present labor market, skills are an essential component of job
readiness. Most importantly, skills provide a store of practical
experience on which to build new competence. 
*	Foundational concepts, the basic principles and ideas of
computers, networks, and information, underpin the technology. Concepts
explain the how and why of information technology, and they give insight
into its opportunities and limitations. Concepts are the raw material
for understanding new information technology as it evolves. 
*	Intellectual capabilities, the ability to apply information
technology in complex and sustained situations, encapsulate higher-level
thinking in the context of information technology. Capabilities empower
people to manipulate the medium to their advantage and to handle
unintended and unexpected problems when they arise. The intellectual
capabilities foster more abstract thinking about information and its
manipulation. 

In answer to last years VITTA conference, yes, I want a revolution 

________________________________

From: yr7-10it-bounces at edulists.com.au
[mailto:yr7-10it-bounces at edulists.com.au] On Behalf Of Bill Kerr
Sent: Tuesday, 25 March 2008 2:59 PM
To: Year 7 - 10 Information Technology Teachers' Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Yr7-10it] girls, IT, computer literacy

great resources - thanks rob

yes, I want to be part of this discussion group, when and if it is set
up :-)

alan kay's material complements the turkle quote - she focuses on social
relations being embedded in simulations; he focuses on how they are
embedded in the user interface

insofar as we conceptualise computers as "mere tools" then they will
continue to be used poorly in schools IMO - better to see them as
interactive medium which either molds the user in its image (eg. an
application or a GUI) or the user molds the machine, expresses
themselves through the medium, including the ability to modify and
develop aspects of the medium 

-- 
Bill Kerr
http://billkerr2.blogspot.com/

On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 12:00 PM, Costello, Rob R
<Costello.Rob.R at edumail.vic.gov.au> wrote:

I sent something through yesterday re Kent's questions about girls in
IT. 

It hasn't appeared - maybe because I added a largish attachment 

Anyway, here's another link I found yesterday that might be of interest
- 

paper is sub titled :  "Using the Storytelling Alice programming
environment to create computer-animated movies inspires middle school
girls' interest in learning to program computers." 

www.thinkingcurriculum.com/alice.pdf

(having a student login at a uni opens up amazing journal resources over
the web - seems nearly all journals have been digitised - back issues
and all 

Be worth schools having an account)  

it talks about the overlap between animation and programming and the
appeal in this approach - appeals to me as well ! 

also a copy and paste of whats I sent yesterday : 

Sherry Turkle did some pioneering work on computer cultures, gender, etc

I think it would be fair to describe her as a feminist orientated
scholar; 

She has some powerful arguments in favour of programming; and critiques
of its general removal from school curriculum over the last 20 years

Here's an excerpt from the 20th anniversary edition of the "Second Self
: Computers and the human spirit"

(in other work with Papert, they looked at how gender interacted with
programming style and knowledge construction 

I worked in a girls school for quite a while and agree with Rachel's
observations about preferred activities

But seems pretty crucial to me that we offer programming in accessible
forms and styles as well

(while I'm on that - here's a review of introductory programming
languages  -

"Lowering the Barriers to Programming: A Taxonomy of Programming
Environments and Languages for Novice Programmers" 

looks at about 200 of them 

http://www.thinkingcurriculum.com/lowerbarrier.pdf  

Turkle : 

In The Second Self I report on my studies of children learning Logo.
Their

styles of programming were varied and revealing. The computer, as I have

said, served as a Rorschach, and programming was one of the most
powerful

manifestations of its projective power. Twenty years later, programming

is no longer taught much in standard classrooms, relegated for the

most part to special after-school computer clubs. These days, educators

most often think of computer literacy as the ability to use the computer

as an information appliance for such purposes as word processing,
running

simulations, accessing educational CD-ROMs, navigating the Internet, and

using presentation software such as PowerPoint. But the question remains

whether mastery of these skills should be the goal of computer
education.

Do they constitute computer literacy?

One unhappy seventh-grade teacher concurred,

"It's not my job to instruct children in the use of an appliance and
then

to leave it at that." These teachers were struggling toward an argument
for

a certain kind of "computational exceptionalism." It takes as a given
that

people once knew how their cars, televisions, or telephones worked and

don't know this any more, but that in the case of mechanical technology,

such losses are acceptable. It insists, however, that ignorance about
the fundamentals

of computation comes at too high a price. One teacher put it

this way: "Children know that the telephone is a mechanism and that they

control it. But it's not enough to have that kind of understanding about

the computer. You have to know how a simulation works. You have to

know what an algorithm is."

In the nearly ten years since I recorded these conversations,
educational

advocates for computational transparency have, in large measure, lost
their

battle. Educators who want to demystify the computer face a new
generation

of children that no longer finds enough mystery in the machine to

care what an algorithm is. It is a generation that has made a transition

from the transparency of algorithm to the opacity of simulation. This
generation

takes overland journeys along a simulated Oregon Trail and when

it plays The Sims or The Sims Online, it designs houses, personal
histories,

and social engagements for the virtual citizenry. In The Second Self,
when

I wrote of the "computer as Rorschach," it was programming that served

as the projective screen for personal and cultural differences. These
days,

computation offers far more immediate projective media: one can create

multiple avatars in online communities and play with relationships,
quite

literally using one's "second (or third, or fourth, of fifth) self."

I have suggested, in talking about Deborah, that on the level of the
individual

child, something interesting has been lost in the move away from

authorship of the programs that underlie one's own game. On a societal

level, there is an analogous loss. The aesthetic of transparency (common

to the Logo movement and the early generations of personal computer

hobbyists) carried with it a political aesthetic that was tied both to
authorship

and to knowing how things worked on a level of considerable detail.

This is a kind of understanding that is not communicated by playing

off-the-shelf simulations.

On one level, high school sophomores playing SimCity for two hours

may learn more about urban planning than they would from a textbook,

but on another level, they may not know how to think about what they

are doing. They "play" simulations but don't have a clear way to
discriminate

between the rules of the game and those that operate in a real city.

Most have never programmed a computer or constructed their own
simulations.

They do not have a language for talking about how one might

rewrite the rules of their games. So, for example, SimCity often gives
players

the impression that raising taxes will lead to riots. But, of course,
there is

a way to write the game so that increased taxes lead to an increase in
health

services, productivity, and social harmony. In my view, citizenship in a

culture of simulation requires that you know how to rewrite the rules.
You

need tools to measure, criticize, and judge every simulation. Today's

teenagers are comfortable as inhabitants of simulated worlds, but most

often, they are there as consumers rather than as citizens. To achieve
full

citizenship, our children need to work with simulations that teach about

the nature of simulation itself.

Tim, who did not know how to program, worked in a complex system built
by

others. Tim played his simulation software as though it were a video
game,

moment to moment, with no understanding of the rules. Deborah was

nurtured by transparency; Tim's skill set was centered on the artful
navigation

of opacity. His philosophy of play: "Don't let it bother you if you

don't understand. I just say to myself that I probably won't be able to

understand the whole game any time soon. So I just play it."6

Tim's method enabled him to accomplish a great deal in simulation

space. His comfort in his virtual world might serve him (not well, but
adequately)

in the many possible careers that lay before him, careers in
architecture,

law, business, medicine, or history. In all of these fields, dealing

with information increasingly entails the navigation of simulations of

other people's creation. However, as I meet professionals in all of
these

fields who move easily within their computational systems and yet feel

constrained by them, trapped by their systems' unseen limitations and

unknown assumptions, I feel continued concern. Are the new generations

of simulation consumers reminiscent of people who can pronounce the

words in a book but don't understand what they mean? We come to

written text with centuries-long habits of readership. At the very
least, we

have learned to begin with the journalist's traditional questions: Who,

what, when, where, why, and how? Who wrote these words, what is their

message, why were they written, and how are they situated in time and

place, politically and socially? The dramatic changes in computer
education

over the past decades leave us with serious questions about how we

can teach our children to interrogate simulations in much the same
spirit.

The specific questions may be different, but the intent needs to be the

same: to develop habits of readership appropriate to a culture of
simulation.

These habits of readership are central to computer literacy and social

responsibility in the twenty-first century.

http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=10515&mode=
toc

(I've uploaded a few of these files sharing - illustrate the amazing
resources which are hidden from google- just a little sample sharing of
what's out there with journals and electronic access to a uni library -
but I guess I will take them pretty soon ) 

More Turkle / Papert 

http://www.thinkingcurriculum.com/turklePapert.pdf

(no copyright here I would think - there are various versions of this
paper online - in fact Paperts classic book MindStorms can be downloaded
for free here 

http://portal.acm.org/toc.cfm?id=SERIES11430&type=series&coll=ACM&dl=ACM

needs a free web registration but then gives you the whole book )  

I'm in the middle of researching stuff - this is the tip of the iceberg
of whats out there 

Cheers 

Rob 

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Year 7 - 10 IT Mailing List kindly supported by 
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Important - This email and any attachments may be confidential. If received in error, please contact us and delete all copies. Before opening or using attachments check them for viruses and defects. Regardless of any loss, damage or consequence, whether caused by the negligence of the sender or not, resulting directly or indirectly from the use of any attached files our liability is limited to resupplying any affected attachments. Any representations or opinions expressed are those of the individual sender, and not necessarily those of the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development.
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