| Technical
Literacy Working Group Minutes
of Meetings:
April 27, 2000, 2:30 pm,
Olin 110
Present: Johnson, Keller, Klein, McFadden
 Join an
online discussion of Technical Literacy at Union College.
Previous meeting minutes.
1. Distribution of materials:
- Bates College on IT
Skills.
- "‘American Scholar’ Looks Askance at
Computer Literacy"
- Computer Literacy at CLAC Institutions. Results from
a survey of CLAC schools on technical literacy requirements. Text notes accompanying
the survey can be found here.
a. Does your college have a general computer-literacy
requirement?
Yes - 1 No - 32 (The one
"yes" is Trinity College.)
b. Does your computer science department (or program) offer
an introductory course for non-majors that does not teach programming?
Yes - 12 No - 20
c. Does your computer science department or program offer an
introductory course for non-majors that does teach programming as part of the course?
Yes - 24 No - 7
2. Steps that we are doing or can do soon.
Reiteration that we want students to gain their digital literacy earlier rather
than later.
a. Use the one library class in FP to cover as many topics as
possible. We will invite Dave Gerhan to a future meeting to go over what is currently
covered. We agree that Preceptors should be expected to stay for the session, both
to learn, and to send the signal that the material is important.
b. Place as much documentation as possible on a ResNet CD, to be given to students
each year. (E.g. NYU-Net CD.)
c. Find time during Freshman Orientation to distribute the CD and/or to give an
introduction to information technology at Union College, along with a schedule of
non-credit OCS / U*STAR classes open to students to improve their skills.
d. Continue to improve the digital literacy of faculty and staff.
e. Design a survey to inventory Union courses to assess the level of technology use
in those courses (see below).
f. Add questions to the end-of-term evaluations asking what kinds of technology
were used, and whether the uses were effective (requires discussion with FRB).
3. Survey design. We agreed that we
conduct a brief e-mail survey of faculty asking in the courses they are currently
teaching:
- Name and number of the course.
- What degree and type of technical/digital/information literacy do you expect or
require of students entering the course?
- What percentage of students in your course had the expected/desired degree of
literacy?
- What types of technical/digital material do you teach in the course?
- Of the material you teach in the course, what is properly the subject matter of
their course, and what is supplemental? (E.g. locating and using online primary
source materials in a history course could be considered part of the course content, while
learning powerpoint to report on those findings would be supplemental.)
- Please add any other comments on the technical literacy needs of students at
Union, and how they might be fulfilled.
4. Action items.
Brenda will polish the survey and get it ready to send out.
Doug will contact Grinnell.
Diane will contact Trinity.
Next meeting:
Tuesday, May 2, 2000
2:30 pm, Olin 110
|
