ENGL 1101: Introduction to University Writing

Digital literacy is the key to the future, but we still don’t

know what it means

By

Wohlsen, M

Wohlsen, M (9/15, 2014). “Digital Literacy is the Key to the Future”. WIRED. Retrieved from
http://www.wired.com/2014/09/digital-literacy-key-future-still-dont-know-means/
MARCUS WOHLSEN BUSINESS 09.15.14 06:30 AM

DIGITAL LITERACY IS THE KEY TO THE FUTURE, BUT WE

STILL DON’T KNOW WHAT IT MEANS

Businessman concentrating on glowing computer attached to confusing tangled lines

Gary Waters/Getty

The entrance to GitHub is the most Instagram-able lobby in tech. It’s a recreation of the Oval
Office, and the mimicry is spot-on but for the rug. Instead of the arrow-clutching eagle that
graces Obama’s office rug, it shows the code-sharing site’s Octocat mascot gazing into the
digital future, just above the motto “In Collaboration We Trust.”

One recent morning, just past this presidential décor, representatives of the tech industry
(Google, Palantir, Mozilla, Github) and academia (UC Berkeley and digital education nonprofit
Project Lead the Way) sat on massive leather couches trying to figure out how to give more
people the means to participate in that future. The theme in play was “digital literacy,” the idea
that the world’s citizens, and kids in particular, will benefit if they’re skilled in the ways of
information technology.

“The amount of potential unlocked by the industrial revolution is dwarfed in information terms
by what you can do with computers,” said Ari Geshner, a senior software engineer at Palantir, a
much-discussed data analysis startup whose customers include US intelligence and defense
agencies. “Digital literacy is about learning to use the most powerful tools we’ve ever built.”

The tricky part comes in defining what exactly is meant by “use.” Most people who use
computers don’t know how to build software. Does that mean they’re digitally illiterate?

For some, it does. It’s become commonplace to argue that everyone is better off learning at
least basic programming skills – that coding itself is the new, necessary literacy. We’ve seen
online courses, games, new programming languages, and even children’s books pushing kids
and their parents in this direction.

But “learning to code” is an exceedingly broad concept, and one which without more specifics
risks oversimplifying conversations about what digital literacy really means. And how digital
literacy is defined is important. This isn’t just about filling Silicon Valley jobs. It’s about
educators, policy makers, and parents understanding how to give the rising generations of
digital natives the tools they need to define the future of technology for themselves.
But “learning to code” is an exceedingly broad concept, and one which without more specific
risks oversimplifying conversations about what digital literacy really means. And how digital
literacy is defined is important. This isn’t just about filling Silicon Valley jobs. It’s about
educators, policy makers, and parents understanding how to give the rising generations of
digital natives the tools they need to define the future of technology for themselves.

Can’t Just Code a Solution

For Carol Smith, who oversees Google’s Summer of Code program, learning to program is about
more than learning to program. “It’s more about giving people the skills and the tools they
learn in the act of coding,” she said during the roundtable a GitHub. “It gives them the critical
thinking skills that are important whether or not they go into computer science as a profession.”
Among other things, it helps people understand the power of algorithms.

Armando Fox, a U.C. Berkeley professor who teaches an introductory software engineering
course, describes the algorithmic mindset as applying “structured linear thinking” to a seemingly
open-ended problem. An excessive faith in the power of the algorithm has bred its own kind of
uncritical thinking in some corners of Silicon Valley. But that may because few people outside
Silicon Valley have the kind of literacy needed to apply algorithms informed by the
sophistication of deep knowledge in a non-tech field.

For most of the time computer science has existed, Fox said, its practitioners have focused
attention inward, on making computers faster and getting them “not to suck.” Only recently,
he said, has that suckiness been overcome to the extent that computer scientists can start
looking outward toward figuring out how to apply computational thinking to problems beyond
computing.

“It’s difficult for me to think of a professional career path that’s not data-driven or on its way to
becoming data driven,” he said. “Our tools have become good enough that we can become
outward-facing.”

Make It Do What You Want

Moving beyond improving career prospects, the conversation then turned repeatedly to the idea
that literacy means more than using digital technology as a means of consuming things other
people make. Digital literacy, Smith said, also is about “how to make it do what you want.” Or,
as Geshner put it: “Are you an iPad or are you a laptop? An iPad is designed for consumption.”
Literacy, as he described it, means moving beyond a passive relationship with technology.
“When you get down to coding, you’re creating your own tools.”

Perhaps surprisingly for a group of technologists, the group largely agreed that getting
computers in schools was a far lower priority than teaching computing as an intellectual
discipline. “It’s ore about introducing early on how to work collaboratively,” said Kaitlin Thaney,
director of the Mozilla Science Lab, who said even “paper prototyping” with small children can
be a valuable first step.

Once serious concern is putting devices in kids’ hands can give the appearance of teaching
digital literacy without providing the actual substance. Even if the computes are there, teachers
often aren’t. Of 37,000 U.S. public high schools, fewer than 10 percent offer college-level
courses in computing, says Bennett Brown, director of curriculum at Project Lead The Way,
which is developing a K-12 computer science program. The problem, he said, is lack of
professional development, and the consequence is lack of equal opportunity for students: “We
need a teacher who’s comfortable at teaching coding in every school in the United States.”

#ENTERPRISE #GITHUB #GOOGLE #MOZILLA