College Freshmen Struggle With Tech Literacy 298
snow_man writes to mention an article on the E-Commerce News site about techno-literacy problems with incoming college freshmen. Some schools, like CSU, are planning on including a technology comprehension test alongside their English and Math evaluations for new students. From the article: "Not all of Generation M can synthesize the loads of information they're accessing, educators say. 'They're geeky, but they don't know what to do with their geekdom,' said Barbara O'Connor, a Sacramento State communications studies professor involved in a nationwide effort to hone students' computer-research skills. On a recent nationwide test to measure their technological 'literacy' -- their ability to use the Internet to complete class assignments -- only 49 percent of the test-takers correctly evaluated a set of Web sites for objectivity, authority and timeliness. Only 35 percent could correctly narrow an overly broad Internet search."
i have noticed this strange phenomenon (Score:5, Insightful)
These people who can't do searches, they click on results where the summary clearly shows that it is not the desired material. If they had read every word, it would have been clear.
It's a basic literacy problem. Americans have really poor literacy. The destruction of the concept that parents should educate their children, combined with an increasingly poor public education system, has left us with a generation too illiterate to do a web search.
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I know people that are somewhat web savvy, but couldn't Google their way out of a paper bag.
And it's not even a smart vs stupid kinda thing.
Some people just have no clue wtf they're doing.
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But are you any more effective using Google when you search outside your own field?
The traditional card catalog gave you three ways to begin: author, title, subject. in most public and school libraries, books for children, books for young adults, would be cataloged separately.
The Britannica, often maligned here, has given two centuries of thought to the problem of organizing knowledge in ways that would make it mo
Re:i have noticed this strange phenomenon (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, I am. Inside my own field I have better options than Google, i.e. I have my own library, notes, etc. But for subjects with which I am less familiar, my favorite method is to look it up in Google, followed by the Wikipedia, although this order could be reversed. It's mostly the convenience in my browser (konqueror) where I can type "gg:" followed by the search string to go directly to Google that sets my preference.
The Propaedia, or outline of the EB, the Syntopicon, the index of ideas and themes which framed the Great Books of the Western World.
The Propaedia is the most useless book in my EB, I have never used it for anything. It could be useful, perhaps, if one wanted to start a methodical study of some subject, but that's what textbooks are for. Let's open the Propaedia at random, here we are: page 535, Division II, section 825-D The religions of Korea. I get ten pointers to articles, the first of which is 10:530-534, which is, naturally, "Korean Religion" in the Macropaedia. If I'm going to read that article, I'll certainly find other pointers to look over, I don't need the Propaedia for that.
I would generally classify an encyclopedia as a middle step between the web and a textbook. For a quick idea on a subject, I search the web, for a better understanding I read the Britannica, for in-depth knowledge I get a book. For me, the web is a much improved substitute to library catalog search.
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Re:i have noticed this strange phenomenon (Score:5, Funny)
Re:i have noticed this strange phenomenon (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:i have noticed this strange phenomenon (Score:5, Informative)
...gives several examples on the first hit ;)
You can't google out of a paper bag (Score:4, Interesting)
I just checked with several variations. The most successful was
"find his way out of a paper bag" instructions
Basically there's lots of info about paper bags and what goes into them and crafty little things you can do with them.
But there is no way to google yourself out of a paper bag. Can't be done.
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Re:i have noticed this strange phenomenon (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the entire problem right there. People have come to expect that the government is going to do that job for them, when really it is their responsibility to make sure their child learns. A typical child's success learning to read or write has little to with how much money the local school has, and everything to do with whether the parents culture is one of reading and teaching, and the parents career is one that allows for that.
the education fraud (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah yes, the classic bait-and-switch technique. Government: "we're going to educate the children now, so every child gets a chance at developing to their full potential." Meanwhile, they're building an alternate set of "education railroad tracks" that lead to a land where illiteracy is the norm and 'the masses' (We the People) are easy to trick and control. Government goons take over the train's engine and throw the switch, all while proclaiming that all their schools need are a few superficial fixes to make them work right.
Maybe if I hadn't wasted all that time in the government's schools my analogy would be more coherent. John Gatto [johntaylorgatto.com] is very articulate in his trashing of the government school concept. Be sure to read (if you can, that is)
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The sites you linked have the feel of a conspiracy theorist type site. A lot of the arguments on the gatto site appear to be of the handwaving type, I think trying to convince me to buy their book. That's a real smooth one,
Re:the education fraud (Score:5, Insightful)
So, we trashh the government schools. What then? Who educates the people who can't afford a private education?
Re:the education fraud (Score:5, Insightful)
My mother's parents couldn't afford to send her to Kindergarten (in 1950's Texas, Kindergarten cost extra), so they sent her to a caretaker's instead. It was cheaper than kindergarten, in that it allowed her mother to work full time.
Mom was bored out of her little mind at the caretaker's. With a little help from some slightly older children, she taught herself to read. But she learned a much more important lesson: If there was anything at all she wanted to learn, it was her responsibility to teach herself.
Government schools hurt children because they teach children that all knowledge comes from a higher authority.
Gatto gives examples of notable americans who educated themselves in an early chapter in his Underground History [johntaylorgatto.com].
Re:the education fraud (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow. you're really struggling with the whole parenthood concept, aren't you?
I was reading before kindergarten; my dad drove a truck and my mother was a waitress. But they still made time to focus on helping me learn.
Oh, and they have these wacky inventions in most cities? They're called libraries they let you read books for free.
I lived in ours.
Re:the education fraud (Score:4, Insightful)
Another example: You used to be able to buy little pills to dissolve in distilled water to create contact lens cleaning solution. It seems some people were too stupid to do this right, so you can't buy them any more and you have to buy premixed solution, which of course is much more expensive.
I won't even mention jarts.
The government can't solve these kinds of problems because it simply can't create solutions that will be efficient, effective and have a reasonable cost for all people. In fact, if you can get one of these three for more than a quarter of the target population, you're lucky.
Of course, the government should be providing education to those who can't provide it for themselves. The problem is that it needs to be a good education, and those people who are in the worst socioeconomic situations usually have the worst schools. But even if the government wanted or could to fix the problem, the teachers' unions have too much to lose if the status quo is disrupted.
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I don't know what kind of business you're in, but I think of the situation this way: More education=better jobs. Better jobs=more income. More income=more money to spend on you and your company's prod
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What if schools were privately owned but the tuition of the students were subsidized by the government? You know, kind of like how the federal government gives grants to students from lower-income families to cover college costs, public or private? The poor will still be able to go to school, but the schools are no longer government owned. Supporting the privatization of education is not the sam
Re:the education fraud (Score:5, Insightful)
So, how would the ownership being private make any difference to the quality of education? It would probably just end up costing the government a lot more money, and a bunch of shonky institutions would spring up to suck off the government teat, with little concern for quality education.
It also raises problems - like government money being spent on schools which might violate separation of Church and State, for example. What's wrong with improving government schools? I don't see why the concept of the government owning schools is bad in itself. Privatization is also not a guaranteed cure for poor education. There are plenty of terrible private schools out there.
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Re:the education fraud (Score:4, Interesting)
From Wikipedia:
In 1990, the National Health Service & Community Care Act (in England) defined this "internal market", whereby Health Authorities ceased to run hospitals but "purchased" care from their own or other authorities' hospitals. Certain GPs became "fund holders" and were able to purchase care for their patients. The "providers" became independent trusts, which encouraged competition but also increased local differences.
What happened was that nobody provided the best healthcare, they provided the cheapest healthcare possible, fund holders bought that healthcare (where corners had obviously been cut) and the hospitals got less funding because they could "provide" "healthcare" so cheaply.
If you want another example of private ownership completely fucking up a formerly public service in the name of profit, then I invite you to read up on British Rail and its dismantling, and its replacement with a system of about 348420 "competing" train companies sharing the same track and none of the maintenance duties, where train companies run services in the cheapest possible way (usually meaning hell for passengers) and collect government subsidies for fucking up the service even further.
Did "competition" help the NHS or British Rail? No, it fucked them up, subjecting them to undue internal and external pressures. My point is this: FREE MARKETS AND COMPETITION ARE NOT A PANACEA. If you are providing a public service then trying to fit that public service into a free market model, or trying to make it make a profit, simply will not work without some drastic corner cutting.
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Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
Re:the education fraud (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:i have noticed this strange phenomenon (Score:5, Interesting)
People have come to expect that the government is going to do that job for them...
Sweden and Russia and two good examples of how a government can achieve excellent results by actively developing and implementing common standards in education. Parents, who themselves grew up in the TV-watching culture, are unlikely to encourage their children to read. Only the government, through a well-planned national campaign, can break this cycle. The way to a better public education system is not throwing more money at the problem. I agree with you here. I think the answer is in further standardization of curricula, textbooks, teaching and testing methods, introduction of uniforms in public schools, and a better system for evaluating professional competency of the faculty. Higher salaries for teachers is where the extra money should go.
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and everything to do with whether the parents culture is one of reading and teaching, and the parents career is one that allows for that.
So, there's no way to help a child that didn't grow up in a household with such a culture? How are parents who weren't educated supposed to create such a culture?
Something sounds fishy about this idea, because there was a time when there was no such thing as reading and writing. So clearly, someone had to learn to read and write without being raised by parents who did.
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Life isn't fair. For most of the smart kids, things will be OK anyway, but for the others, a lot depends on parental involvement.
No, life isn't fair, but that's not a good argument for getting rid of public education. Just because life isn't fair, doesn't mean we shouldn't try to help those people who have been dealt an unfair hand.
You're assuming that everyone is born with the same abilities.
No, I'm not. Where did I imply that?
Re:i have noticed this strange phenomenon (Score:4, Insightful)
Even worse, colleges will not take kids with poor education, preferring to enroll foreign students instead. Have you wondered why you see so many aliens on campuses? Well, that's because they are better than our failing public education system can produce.
And the poor American kids are left in a hole with only two ways out: army or meth cooking.
And it will take radical measures to fix this growing prlobem.
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I've never seen an alien on campus. If you are seeing them, perhaps you should alert Mulder and Scully?
No! (Score:2)
I be to differ with you. I think it's a problem of "No Child left behind." This policy leads to teachers "faking" results to get more funding and the deadly "I co not care attitude", which kills morale.
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If schools worldwide are anything like here, it's the former but not the latter. Kids are taught somewhere from 10-14 the basics of speed reading. If they manage to pick up a few points out of text they're given to speed-read, then they're marked high, pass, and end up learning to use the skill in all their schooling.
Which would be good if it were taught well, but it isn't. All too often the testing process involves little more
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It gets very amusing when you have two geeks competing, especially if one of them is a poseur and unable to defer to someone else that has better skills. I'm no genius, but I know when I should STFU and watch.
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I do that often (Score:4, Interesting)
Unless you know the exact url, that's usually the quickest way to find a site. A notorious example: try to get the Nissan car company website in the USA.
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Missing the point... (Score:5, Insightful)
As long as US schools (for what it's worth, I don't necessarily know if it's a lot better elsewhere) continue to fail in teaching critical thinking skills properly, early enough to make a difference that is, then people will continue to be clueless when it comes to the sort of problems highlighted. Again, it's not a technology problem, but an educational one, which in fact is basically a symptom of the current values of our society and their effect on education. But that's another story altogether...
Re:Missing the point... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Missing the point... (Score:5, Informative)
In my state (Utah), you can not teach in a high school without a degree in the subject you are to teach. They have bent the rules, but in the past couple of years it has become much more strict. I understand that there is still some bending of the rules in small, rural schools, but it is still discouraged.
In Utah, if you major in education, you can teach grades 1-8. In practice (at least in my county) that doesn't include math. If you want to teach anything higher than Math 6 you have to go back to school and get an endorsement. Also, if you major in Special Education (usually dual major with Education) you can teach special classes K-12. Minors or emphases you take in college can count for something as well. For example, a Spanish minor might get you certified to teach up through grade 9 in Spanish, and a Math emphasis would certify you to teach Pre-Algebra (or maybe it's Algebra 1).
If you majored in Math or something like that and later decide to get a teaching certificate, you have to go back to school to take some Education classes. You learn about stuff like content area literacy, classroom management, and so forth.
So my point is that you already have what you want: CS majors are already teaching CS, etc., at least in secondary schools in Utah. I think implementing that sort of thing in elementary schools would be very difficult.
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Critical thinking has to be learned in every aspect involving information, whether it be online, tv, books, magazines, other people, etc..
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That and lack of knowledge. Hard to find subjects are best found in my experience with the "exact phrase" searches using the quotes and -minus to remove common unwanted results. Of the people I help with their computers I've never seen any of them use these. Or click the advanced search to learn about them. Most people just type How do I do X, and like most things with computers, just expect it to work.
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Oh, come on. Try again: MTV, YouTube, and every other attention-span killing, passive-consumption bit of fluff and sound-bite-world-view bling-bling = self-worth bit of nonsense is where this comes from. Whether one politician or idealogy takes hold because kids are just skulls full of goo is a separate issue. Whether it's Rosie O'Donnel's witless rants that resonate, or some preacher's feel-goodiness, i
"Technical Literacy" is not CS, EE, etc.. (Score:2)
"Technical Literacy" does not involve the sort of things you would run into in a CS or EE class, nor does it involve IT topics such as installing drivers, etc. "Technical Literacy" is being able to do the very basic through technical means, at least to me. This does involve evaluating a website's "objectivity, authority and timeliness.", just as in the dark ages (when I was in school) and we were expected to d
Uh... (Score:2)
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Re:Uh... (Score:5, Interesting)
Indeed. Here in Norway, there's an ongoing debate about the rather appalling math level of our school kids. I'm certain it has a LOT to do with calculators. All they learn now is how to punch numbers into a calculator and get some result.
I saw this first hand when I tried to help my girlfriend take some slightly more advanced math. If she encountered an assignment where she was unsure of how to proceed, she would grab the calculator and examine each and every button on it, trying to find that "magic button". In most cases the assignment could be solved perfectly without a calculator.
I like my previous math professor's attitude. When solving some problem on the blackboard, he could say "and then you can punch this into a calculator and get some number, but that's not the important part".
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I knew thought I should write this, but people need to be better to do math in their heads. An example would be the 6 question of this test from moronland that fooled me earlier this day http://moronland.net/moronia/moron/1077/ [moronland.net]
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The Next Generation... (Score:3, Funny)
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Re:The Next Generation... (Score:4, Funny)
Easy. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Easy. (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Easy. (Score:4, Funny)
"porn -midget +horse -gay"
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Too true (Score:2, Informative)
Then I'd turn around and watch some middle-aged ladies (this was at a community college) whiz through Photoshop.
What about non-internet sources? (Score:5, Insightful)
And I would like to know the criteria for the "correct" evaluation of the objectivity and authority of these sources.
"Only 35 percent could narrow an overly broad internet search"
Yeah, and what percent of incoming freshmen new how to narrow an overly broad search using whatever ancient, proprietary electronic card catalog system the school useswithout being taught? Probably less than 35%.
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Look here:
http://www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlpubs/crlnews/backi ssues1998/julyaugust6/teachingundergrads.htm [ala.org]
Those are the criteria (or some variation thereof) that most librarians try to explain to you during whatever limited time they get with incoming freshman.
Personally, I think they should add a 6th criteria: Does the information match other 'credible' sources.
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The difference is that internet searches are now common every day tasks performed by regular people. Not just academics, not just research librarians, but everybody. It's the modern day equivalent of being literate. In some countries, more people use the net than know how to drive a car.
The flip
Technoliterate? Pah! (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's not screw around with these modern ideas of technology- we have to go back to the basics; reading and writing. Let's make sure people can read a newspaper before we ask them to read code. Let's make sure they can multiply before we ask them to write it. Our society depends on these things. Not knowing how to find the 'start' button or what a network stack is lags an extremely distant third, if at all.
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I just spend 3 months making a report for my university (yes i am a student - Aalborg University does things a litle different than most others) and I can guarantee you that there where many gramatical and spelling mistakes. Does this mean I am unable to write a report (I doubt any of these mistakes would prevent anyone from understanding the report)
Did we not just talk about this last month? (Score:2)
Which CSU? (Score:5, Insightful)
Nobody's fingers are at risk of falling off from those few additional letters, are they?
I know, it's not *that* important, but it makes me peevish.
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I don't quite know what that ETC journalist was writing about. He didn't seem to know the difference between -a- CSU, and an entire system of 23 individual universities.
Was he writing about assessment testing for Sac State (CSUS), or every single CSU (SFSU, SSU, Cal Poly, etc)? He keeps flip flopping between references to the CSU system, Sac State, and "CSU" as an incorrect acronym for Sac St
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As for the CSU/UC distinction, CSUs historically didn't grant graduate degrees at all, but they're giving out more
Searchless in Irvine... (Score:2, Funny)
Comment removed (Score:3, Funny)
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Re:Hmmm I wonder why (Score:4, Funny)
Actually, the ability to critically think is continuously supressed in the public "regurgitation" school system. These systems train students that there is exactly one correct answer to questions, and that they have to be done in a specific method. The supression of the theory of evolution is one example.
The only way to develop the skill is to follow the concept of He Said, She Said [imdb.com] - find a topic (e.g. Is capital punishment acceptable?), and write two opposing viewpoints. As much as you hate the rigid 5-paragraph essay, it is ideal for keeping your two opposing arguments balanced enough. Here's a scaled down version (i.e. two 5-sentence paragraphs) of such an argument:
+ Capital punishment is necessary in the criminal justice system. When criminals commit severe crimes, they remain in jail for the rest of their life, leeching from the rest of society. Capital punishment will significantly reduce the overall cost by cutting down the number of years such criminals can remain a burden. In addition, this punishment can also be utilized as a method to encourage reformation (similar to parole) where produtive prisoners are permitted to enjoy life for a longer period. This economic advantage can help both society and prisoner reformation.
- Capital punishment is the bane of society. The current justice system is inaccurrate with a large quantity of false convictions. These false convictions, which include charges "worthy" of capital punishment, can be composed of fabrication of evidence, political motivation, Confessing Sams, or general mistakes. A direct result of such blunders is a loss of an innocent life. To prevent such unnecessary loss, capital punishment must be avoided at all costs.
As you take a look from both sides of an argument, you become better developed in handling suspect claims. While you may initially have an emotional feeling concerning something not being "right", this will change into being able to detect the exact arguments that are causing the problem.
Objective Sources? (Score:4, Interesting)
- Dan Rather's debacle with the Word documents [wikipedia.org]
- 920 Reuters images being pulled because they're suspected of being altered [wikipedia.org]
- the Jayson Blair situation over the course of many years [wikipedia.org]
The point is, adults in this nation think these traditional institutions are objective, so why are we faulting the youth for their assumptions?Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Pajamas Media: We Blog, You DONT decide. (Score:2, Insightful)
Unfortunately closed minded [littlegreenfootballs.com] groups [hotair.com] and certain people [michellemalkin.com] have a bit of an agenda that isnt simply "find the truth".
The first one may be a clear given, the third one politically motivated but still within the ballpark, but the second one regarding Reuters shows the true colors of who the critics are(and how they slant).
That is, Pajamas Media (the group associated with most of the criticism) has too much of a country club, right-wing, and pro-Israel slant(and does not mind showing [blogspot.com] it in the case of LGF). It co
Clarification (Score:2)
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And the worst option (Score:2)
The test (Score:3, Insightful)
Literacy (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, that's more of library science issue, or whatever you call it. Technological literacy is the ability to use technology to get stuff done. Website criticism isn't really much part of that.
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What else did you expect from EST? That's the same people who give GRE tests. Beyond the general test (which itself is not without problems), they seem to be clueless about what exactly they are evaluating. Take the math test [ets.org]: 66 questions over 170 minutes, 2.7 minutes per question.
Scores on the tests are intended to indicate knowledge of the subject matter emphasized in many undergraduate programs as preparation for graduate study.
I am not sure that "indicate" means what they think it does. Anyway, th
Computers are like CRACK COCAINE (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm not a ludite, I just learned the hard way, after 30 years of hardcore computer addiction. They will f*** you up. Staring at a 2d desktop screen all day will seriously dissociate you from reality, and you will lose lots of skills you take for granted. Starting with the social ones first. Staring at a computer screen for hours
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Nothing wrong with not using nails. it's reliable, and worked well for thousands of years. Houses built with nails l
Well, you CAN improve on the nail :-) (Score:2)
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Citation? If that is a personal account of someone you know, then it's easily countered with another personal account which claims that computers have better social skills than most teenagers.
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There are issues with our education system, issues with todays students, and issues with parents that are probably far more serious than learning how to type a letter into MS Word. Computers make work easier--or they are supposed to. But hey: Garbage in, garbage out. A computer can't instantaneously make its operator any smarter.
S
KnowIT (Score:2, Informative)
Oh, I can just see it now.... (Score:2, Insightful)
This has nothing to do with tech literacy (Score:3, Insightful)
Evaluating information for objectivity, authority, and timeliness is a fundamental skill that's lacking, and it has nothing to do with the medium used to obtain the information. Look at how few people are able to read a newspaper or magazine objectively. Look at how many people, for example, think Fox news is real, unbiased, fair journalism. Thats SCARY.
So it turns out people are equally poor at this skill when using the internet, as they are when using the television, newspapers, books, magazines, or word of mouth. Okay, that's not surprising at all. Why should that make a difference.
That said, this is a problem and something should be done about it. But it's a mistake to characterize it as a problem with tech literacy. Tech literacy would be the inability to actually use the technology to sort the information. The article indicates that students have no trouble with this, rather with the more traditional cognitive skills.
WIfeys experience (Score:2)
The younger ones that might have had a chance tend to party a lot, and get distracted. Its that, 'hey we are in college so lets drink a lot' kinda thing. The class that she is in is 'secretary' course. She puts in a lot of extra hours that to get the marks that she did.
Quite a number of people were shocked to discover that the only people that were likely to pass were those that
Generation M? (Score:2)
Average people are idiots (Score:2)
Alright, now that I'm through ranting on that, yes I fully agree th
Google partially to blame too (Score:3, Insightful)
Now having said that, a few other issues -
Tech literacy in schools devolves to teaching kids how to use Microsoft applications like Office. And most of the problem with that is that MS has created overly complex beasts that are hard to use in the first place. Moreover, none of them was created with a student in mind.
People have short attention spans. If you're going to force people to 'use' the internet for school work then you're going to have to get Google and their ilk to partner with schools to provide more elegant and faster and more limited results windows to students.
You are going to have to understand that just like teachers teach to the test, students use tools to answer the specific question and no more. No one, or almost no one is going to surf the web to casually learn more about Rene Decartes or the history of wool. They are looking for the answers to questions 1, 3, 7 etc. on their worksheet. And if the result could spit back the exact sentence they could then write on their sheet, that would be great.
Next you're going to have to pare down technical complexity. My flat screen TV has a 63 page users manual (just the English). My phone's user's guide is more than 240 pages. Neither of them does exactly what I want nor do they do exctly what their vast tomes of documentation say they should do. Similarly if your computer apps are buggy, broken, poorly documented or overly documented then it means you probably did a poor job yourself on the fit and finish of the apps.
Last but not least, the general interface on computers is junk. In the broader sense, it assumes that the application you had me install is very important and has to be front and center all the time. My son's computer has so many icons in the system tray I don't even know what most of them are. Why would anyone in their right mind even screw with them and risk breaking something? I wouldn't.
Interface Jockeys (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course just because you can click the right buttons doesn't mean you know what the hell is going on. I've seen a guy that calls himself a "computer consultant" re-configure TCP/IP and not know a lick about what a router was, what an IP address is, what DNS is, what a netmask means, etc. And that'd be fine if there wasn't an assumption that you really knew what was going on. We all start out at that level, it's just most people never get any farther than being what I call a "interface jockey".
So I don't find it really surprising that this principle translates into the entire generation (and no, I don't think previous generations have been any better at the same skills). I think the lesson here is that we need to stop concentrating on the interface, and start concentrating on how to use the tool. Teaching a guy how to swing a hammer is nice and all, but it doesn't mean you know anything about building a fence. Similarly knowing how to do a web search is useless unless you know how to seperate good sources from bad, narrow your search, define your problem, learn how to refine your search through what you've learned, etc.
Funny story (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm reminded of the time I was an aide in my high school's computer lab. Usually the lab was used for drafting and design classes, so you'd expect the kids to have some experience with computers (if you've got to learn AutoCAD, you already know some basic functions).
So one day the teacher in charge asks me to help one student that is trying to log in. He can't figure out what the problem is, and the teacher doesn't want to fix it until he knows what is going on.
I go over there, and the kid just sits there, staring at the login screen. He asks me what to do, so I just read the screen to him; "Enter your username. Enter your password. Click OK." Pretty soon a window pops up that says "incorrect password."
So this kid isn't using the right password, and he can't figure it out even though it says so right on the screen. After I see the message, I try to inform him: "It looks like you don't know your password." The kid hears this and gets angry, "Yes, that IS my password." Actually, it's not his password--the proof was right on the screen. Upon hearing his complaint, I quickly rephrase my statement: "Oh, I'm sorry... the computer doesn't know your password." That makes sense to him, and I go have the password reset by the administrator.
True, lots of people are not "technologically literate" or whatever, but I think for a lot of people the problem is a little deeper than the mere fact that a computer was involved.
synthesize? (Score:3, Informative)
Even the complainant can't use tech words correctly. One suitable word would be assimilate.
Yeah, I know I'm a pedant, but educators should know which word to pick...
Re: (Score:2)
Anyway, the article is about US techno-illiteracy and general idiocy. You are a prima facie example.