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Technical
Literacy Working Group Membership: Doug Klein (Assoc. Dean for IT & Economics, Chair), Andrea Foroughi (History), David Hemmendinger (Computer Science), Brenda Johnson (Mathematics), Diane Keller (Director of Academic Computing), Tom McFadden (Director of Schaffer Library). Technical Literacy Working Group home page (with links to meeting minutes and references and resources).
D R A F T To: Christina Sorum, VP for Academic Affairs [Changes in each version are color-coded.] Background Technical (or digital, or information) literacy is rapidly growing importance as a mark of an educated person. Technology has become an important tool for research, analysis, and of communication. Along with the information resources made available by technology, the incredible power to collect and analyze information, and the ability to effectively reach wide audiences comes the real need to understand the limitations of the new technology. "To err is human; to really foul things up requires a computer" is more true every day. Powers of critical analysis and judgement are more essential the more one has access to unfiltered and unedited information. One remains technically illiterate at one's peril. A growing number of colleges and universities are adopting technical literacy standards (NY Times, Sept. 29, 1999). The reasons given vary from wanting students to be able to get good jobs, to aiding communication skills, to simply "being able to function well in the 21st Century." As an added impetus, some accreditation agencies are beginning to stipulate that schools must teach technical literacy. In the Winter of 2000, the Union College Technical Literacy Working Group was formed at the request of the Vice President for Academic Affairs, and charged to "establish a target for the technical / digital / information literacy of Union students, and a means to ensure that those students reach or exceed that target while at Union." Targets One difficulty we faced was defining technical literacy. We noted that there are several dimensions to this literacy. First, we can distinguish between ability to use self-contained desk-top applications (word processing, spreadsheets, presentation software, and more discipline-specific software) versus electronic information retrieval (largely via the web, although not entirely). Second, we should consider the spectrum of general-purpose competency (word processing or library catalog) versus specialized discipline-specific applications (using Mathematica or collecting economics data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics). A survey of Union faculty conducted during the Spring term of
2000 asked the types of technical skills expected, and the degree to which students
entering a course had the expected skills. The vast majority of responses indicated
that all or nearly all students had the required skills. A few surveys indicated
areas of weakness: using online library resources; being able to follow MLA formatting
requirements; using specialized software such as Mathematica. Some faculty responded
that they assumed that all students had the expected skills, but that they really did not
know. While not intended to be an exhaustive list, nor implying that all students must master all skills, the following is a list suggestive of the types of technical skills we discussed.
Having said this, we took as a starting point that the preferred way to ensure any level of competence, from most basic to advanced, was to make students use technology in the context of a specific problem to solve. Teaching about technology in a vacuum will not make students literate. In the same way that students must write substantively to learn to write, they must use technology for a purpose in order to learn technology. Tools We explored alternative means of achieving technical literacy among our students, including a required competency exam (such as TekXam), a required course, or (our preferred solution) working to incorporate the development of technical literacy into existing General Education courses. There are two fundamental problems with deciding to administer a technical literacy exam. The first problem is deciding what to test for, and even if we could reach agreement on what constitutes technical literacy, recognize that that definition will change from year to year. The second problem is the need to offer preparation and/or remediation for students taking the exam. If we require students to take the exam, we are under an obligation to prepare students for the exam. We do recommend that Union students who choose
to have the opportunity to take a technical exam, like TekXam. This should be
arranged through the Career Development Center. While not appropriate for all
students, some students will welcome this opportunity to certify their skills. Since the Gen Ed curriculum is the common core through which all students pass, it is here that we can address the issue of gaining technical literacy. No single exposure to any aspect of technical literacy will guarantee that a student has learned it. "Use a word three times and it is yours." With technology, a student might need more than three uses to learn it well. We already have the first piece of gaining literacy, perhaps even the cornerstone, in place with the Library Instruction Program which is built in to Freshman Preceptorial. We urge that as FP is revisited, this component be preserved and even expanded. Instructors in freshman courses (not just FP) should repeated require students to use the lessons they see during this instruction. The fact that students take approximately twelve Gen Ed courses means that only a little technology need be incorporated into each one in order to make a difference. In fact, many courses probably already utilize technology. The Gen Ed board should undertake to ensure that students be exposed to a broad range of technology applications in these courses. The Gen Ed Board should, perhaps with the assistance of the Assessment Board, survey all courses which can be used to count towards Gen Ed, and find out what technology component already exists. It could be as simple as instructors expecting papers to be word processed; e-mail exchanges between faculty and students; students retrieving course materials or doing research online. Or it could be more sophisticated: homework problems requiring use of spreadsheets; data collection and analysis; graphing data; preparing web pages or making in-class presentations. Before moving to increase the technology component of Gen Ed classes, we should assess the current levels. The next step should be to work with Departments or individual faculty to see where it makes pedagogical sense to make increased use of technology to solve some course-related problem. Here, Departments and faculty can, if necessary, call on the resources of the Curricular Design Office. A Modest Proposal While we could go the route of specifying Technology Across the Curriculum (TAC) courses to mirror the WAC program, we did not feel that this would serve any useful purpose. The trend is clearly that more and more courses are incorporating some technology, and that encouraging this trend especially among Gen Ed courses will ensure that our graduates are technically literate. A more direct strategy to achieve the desired goal of giving students repeated motivation to use technology in pedagogically sound and useful ways, is to provide faculty with an incentive to expect students to use technology. Faculty teaching courses which fulfill any part of the General Education requirements could be offered a small award (say $200) for each and every new exercise or assignment which requires students to demonstrate one or more of the types of technical literacy listed above. Moreover, the list should not be considered as exhaustive. If a faculty member can demonstrate the value of learning and using some other aspect of technology, it should be allowed. Awards will be determined jointly by the Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education and the Associate Dean for Information Technology. The awards will be available for the two academic years beginning in the Fall of 2000, not to exceed 150 in total. Funding will be drawn from the accrued interest on the Mellon grant. The award process will follow these guidelines:The exercise/assignment must be new. With thanks to those who have gone before, there are no awards for already existing assignments/activities. Sorry. The technology component of the assignment should be transparent to the student. That is, the instructor should not say "we have to use technology somewhere, so this is it". Rather, the nature of the assignment should simply as a matter of course require some use of technology (see the list above for some types of tasks that might be required). The faculty member must submit a copy of the requirement itself [to the Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education?], and must also document student work based on that assignment when it is first used. Students should be (in part) assessed and critiqued on the degree of technical literacy displayed (just as traditional literacy currently counts for something). The faculty should undertake to continue to use the assignment (with suitable modifications, as needed) each time the course is offered. Faculty can receive awards for at most two assignments per course, and four awards overall. Assignments/ activities submitted by any one faculty member must be substantially different from one another. Faculty in team-taught courses must split the award for a jointly developed activity. No funds are available in this program for software, hardware, or other supplies. If such expenditures are needed, the faculty member is encouraged to apply to IEF. D R A F T Page maintained by J D Klein, Associate Dean for Information Technology, Union College. Page last updated 08/24/01 . |
