What is Computer Literacy?
tay...@hplabsc.uucp
>The first is an absence of fear - of the machine, of the software, of
>the technology, of doing something wrong, of blowing things up... I
>would add perhaps a sense of adventure, but that may be going too far.
>Is this a teachable skill? I'm not sure, but I don't think so.
Absence of fear, perhaps plays some part, but only on a basic level.
For instance, while I was a computer technician working on high
voltage display tubes I had a big fear of getting zapped. This fear
was a healthy fear, because it made me make sure I took of my watch
and any other jewelry that would attract electrons. The reason why
I did get zapped was I was not careful. I was more careful there
after. Things like taking the plug from the wall before I put my
fingers in a box were also second nature because I was zapped.
In software I really do not have the same fear. It can not zap me
the same way. The fear thats I do have is losing hours and hours of
work. We do back ups nightly on our machines because of this. When
working as SU, I also have fears. Fears like I might type in the
wrong device name when making a new file system on a disk. This
causes me to be very careful, and to review each command line before
hitting return.
Recently we got one of the new Vaxstation 2000s, and I put Ultrix
on it. I found out that the floppy disk drive was called rx. So
I wanted to back up some info on it. I said "tar cv /dev/rrx0a".
It so happens that DEC, inspite of labeling their hard drives
"rd", also label them "rx", so rx0a was really rd0a. Needless
to say it destroyed the root file system. I managed to destroy
the root file system again when trying to boot from a floppy I
created. The floppy had enough on it to load to a certain point.
All I wanted to do was to see if it would work. There must have
been something in rom that it triggered, and the computer wrote on
the hard drive. If we didn't have to borrow a MicroVax to build
the system with, I wouldn't really care. I now fear that anything
I might do, might destroy the root file system. Thus I will limit
the activities I will do on that machine. That is until we get
a better way to rebuild the OS.
Mark
[We're moving a bit off subject here, so can we try to tie it back in
with the original discussion, please? -- Dave]
tay...@hplabsc.uucp
> Absence of fear, perhaps plays some part, but only on a basic level.
> For instance, while I was a computer technician working on high
> voltage display tubes I had a big fear of getting zapped. This fear
> was a healthy fear, because it made me make sure I took of my watch
> and any other jewelry that would attract electrons.
The only problem here is that your fear of get shocked had
a very real basis. For most people who fear computers this is not
the case. I work as a consultant on the campus network. While I do
occationally get questions from experianced users who need to know some
fine or obscure detail of the system, most of the people I help are new
users with little or no knowledge of computers. The biggest single
problem that most of them have is an irrational fear or distrust of the
machine. In turn, most of this fear is simply due to the fact that it
is something new to them. They jump when it beeps at them because they
feel that it is yelling at them, they are afraid that they will mess
something up, ect, ect. Helping them overcome this fear is basically
a matter of boosting their confidence. No, it's not yelling at you,
it's asking you for help. You can't mess anything up at this point,
and so on. Showing and explaining that it isn't some monster out to
trick them and eat their grade, but a tool to be used helps to remove
some of that fear.
As for the general discussion, I do think that this fear is
a very big part of the difference between the computer literate and
the computer illiterate. Once they start to overcome this fear there
are still steps to go through. On a pragmatic basis, I draw the line
at the point where people start using the online or printed manuals
first before they come running to a more experianced user or consultant
for help. At that point they have developed enough self-confidence
and knowledge of the system to further their own knowledge.
I think that this really is a form of literacy. Learning to
understand a manual page definately requires a knowledge of an
other language (especially a CMS help file :-). In addition, simply
coming to understand the syntax of a system's commands is a language
skill. I have had considerable success simply explaining that a
command is a verb, sometimes it requires an object (the filename or
pathname) and that the options are adverbs. The only real problem
is that most (all?) operating systems that I am experianced with have
the modifiers (the adverbs) separated from the verb and following it.
This seems illogical to most English speakers when they first encounter
it, since English uses pre-positions in most cases. Does anyone have
experiance with teaching users whose first language is predominately
post-positional? Do they find it easier to understand, say, UNIX
command structure?
Vnend