Digital Literacy - a follow-up

Last time I posted here, I critiqued the concept that we should all become programmers. Instead, I suggested that interface literacy was the key to giving people the power they need to make informed decisions about current technologies.

Today, I've come across this article - Teaching Digital Literacy - which includes a video featuring Douglas Rushkoff talking about the subject of his new book Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age.

I'm currently trying to purchase a copy of the eBook to get a better understanding of the arguments Rushkoff is making (the vendor, OR Books, keeps 404-ing when I try to pay - nice work*). I still have issues with the terminology used, but the point he makes that the digital medium is just as full of bias as television, print and radio is really valuable. And that bias is not made up only of the content itself, but the actual method in which the content is shared.

Will post a follow-up here when I've had a chance to sit down and spend some quality time with the book. (If OR Books manages to fix their website.)

*UPDATE 29th Jan: I emailed them regarding the payment issue; still unable to pay via PayPal, and their non-PayPal payment method is not handled with a sufficient level of security, so I won't be purchasing the book for a while longer. Still, I have found this free sample chapter. And ooh, ooh. I have something to say about this. Next time.

Programming - the New Literacy?

We use technology to create content. Literacy is a measure of how well you can create, contextualise, and accurately interpret content.

That content could be updating your status on a social network. It could be your SmartRider card logging your daily trips. We are all generating data, telling stories, leaving imprints with our technology - be it pens and paper or binary code in a machine.

In his article Programming is the New Literacy, Marc Prensky postulates that knowing how to write programming code will become an essential skill. You will not be considered literate without it.

It is an interesting argument. But I think he is somewhat confused about the nature of programming.

A computer is a tool requiring both hardware and software. This is where the confusion lies. Prensky confuses the language of software with the language of human thought. But software, while written using a 'language', does not communicate human ideas. It communicates machine ideas. Software itself is a construction - it is a tool made out of code. And just as we are not required to build a telephone to be considered capable of holding a discussion, we will not all be required to build software to be considered literate in computer interfaces.

The author also seems to confuse interface literacy with programming. Examples provided of programming performed by teens are things like "downloading a ringtone" or "customizing your mobile phone or desktop". This is not programming. This is understanding how to use a tool - much like understanding how to change the ambient temperature of your refrigerator.

I love programming (well, on good days) but do I think it will become a required skill? No. Do I think interface literacy will become an essential communication skill? Yes! Eventually. Just as we are required to understand how to use pen and paper in order to write essays in Year 10 English Literature.

You might think I'm being pedantic. Listen, this is me being pedantic: Flash is not a programming language! It is a piece of software! Actionscript is the 'programming language' used by Flash. That said, you may hear  old-school programmers refer to it as 'scripting' rather than 'programming' due to it not needing to be compiled amongst other things (Okay, one of the 'other things': True programming languages usually let you write any sort of utility you want. While I could make a game or short animation with Actionscript, I could not write a boot loader with it - hat-tip to Pixelseeker for the example).

Yes. Now I am being somewhat pedantic.

Towards the end of the article Prensky re-defines programming as 'the ability to control machines'. While the semantics make me cry (oh, fine, not really, at most they add another micro-twitch to the nervous tic I'm working on to increase my nerd cred) I agree completely with the message. The abillity to control our society's current, predominant technologies is vital for any individual.

Once upon a time, our latest technologies were zippers and velcro. Today, computer interfaces. We need to understand these in the same way we need to understand how to use a zipper; if we fail, we'll end up looking like a bit of a dunce.

As we may think: reaching conclusions we cannot find time to grasp

Reading this;

The investigator is staggered by the findings and conclusions of thousands of other workers—conclusions which he cannot find time to grasp, much less to remember, as they appear. Yet specialization becomes increasingly necessary for progress, and the effort to bridge between disciplines is correspondingly superficial.

and this;

The world has arrived at an age of cheap complex devices of great reliability; and something is bound to come of it.

and this;

All our steps in creating or absorbing material of the record proceed through one of the senses—the tactile when we touch keys, the oral when we speak or listen, the visual when we read. Is it not possible that some day the path may be established more directly?

it is hard to believe As We May Think was written over 60 years ago.