Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Literacy, Numeracy, and Technolacy?

Schools need to teach technolacy. Technolocy is to technology what literacy is to words, and numeracy is to numbers. If you go up to a 6th grader and ask her how she would take 20 dollars and distribute it evenly between 5 friends, she knows she needs to use math. Similarly, if you ask a fourth grader to describe a funny experience, he will know to use words. We need to teach students to know to use technology.

I'm not sure what this will look like, but if I ask an eighth grade student to persude her classmates of an idea that she has, I'd like her to just know to use technology. Get the facts off he web, make some charts with a spreadsheet. Pull it all together with presentation software. This should be as automatic as the the math or writing examples.

It is more important the students know to look for a technical solution, then they now how to use technology. If they know to look for a technical solution, they will learn to use technology as an outgrowth. It won't necessarily work in the other direction.

Once we have taught student to look for a technical solution - technolacy - we are well on our way to teaching them to innovate.

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