The boredom of education literature

It seems that according to The Fischbowl you shouldn’t be, your technological illiteracy is equivalent to being unable to read or write in the 1980’s. After reading this award winning piece of blogging I find myself agreeing and disagreeing…

I agree that being technologically illiterate and proud of it is stupid. I don’t agree that it is equivalent to not being able to read and write in the 1980’s. Let me explain…

Today’s society uses computers, its a fact of life that unless you live in an amish society (link to wikipedia for amish) you will use a computer in your day to day life. It may not be the type that has a keyboard and monitor but it will be some form of a computer. I leave you to think of examples, if you cannot and are proud of that fact then perhaps you may very well fall into the proudly illiterate category and should do something about that. Being illiterate with regard to computers is fine as far as I am concerned… being proud of that illiteracy is another thing – its like being proud you came last in a race when you could do much better but just couldn’t be bothered. There are people out there who can teach you (no matter how illiterate you are) and you will revel in the doors that this knowledge (just like any other knowledge) can potentially open to you.

Onto the point I now take offence at in the aforementioned blogposting, it seems to me once more to be a case of that those who know look down on those that don’t. Being illiterate in terms of computer technology is NOT as bad as it is made to seem.

If a teacher today is not technologically literate – and is unwilling to make the effort to learn more – it’s equivalent to a teacher 30 years ago who didn’t know how to read and write.”

The three main reasons I think the above quote is useless inflammatory rubbish.

1. You can communicate ideas and thoughts effectively in a permanent form without computer technology – something that was not possible to do without being able to write in the 1980’s.

2. Your thoughts and ideas can still be informed by any manner of other media so that you can keep up to date with changes and advances in your field or discipline – something that would have been unachievable in the 1980’s if you were unable to read.

3. Unless you are teaching computer science or another subject directly related to the use of computers then your field has a large number of parts that don’t require the use of technology to teach – every subject and discipline in the 1980’s needed reading and writing as skills to be able to perform all tasks.

So once again it is those with computer knowledge trying to make it seem like anyone who isn’t completely on top of technology is not worthwhile and should be looked down on and pitied. Computer technology is a part of our society BUT it is not an essential part of teaching.

You don’t have to know the inner workings of a combustion engine to use a car, the same goes for computers – there is no need to know everything about technology and computers but rather you just need to know enough so that you can use them to enhance your teaching. There are people whose sole job it is to ensure that operating systems are user friendly or intuitive, a lot of the time they are so good at their job that we don’t even realise there is a computer behind what we are doing.

To those who still feel that illiteracy is a crime I leave you with this …. next time you look at a youtube video or send an email or grab something off a shared network please think about how much you know about the interconnectedness of websites, domains, networks, file sharing and networking protocols that are being used here… you know the surface… enough to use it but I am willing to bet that well over 75% won’t know anything much further than that… therefore you too are illiterate… but thats ok because you don’t need to know that to use it… right?

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