Technological Literacy

Essay # 17076

Computer and Technology > Internet
Education > Education and Computers

A discussion of the growing need for critical computer literacy and its affect on the perception of "literacy".

1,920 words () | 13 sources | MLA | 2002 United States

Paper Summary:

This paper evaluates computer/technological literacy, the term given to frequent use of modern technologies, especially computers. It examines how with the growing use of computers in the workplace, classroom and home in addition to the Internet coming into common use as a marketplace, bank, library and communications tool, technological/computer literacy has become unavoidable. It discusses how computer literacy affects the notion of literacy itself and if they can be considered one and the same. Literacy at a basic level is considered the ability to read and therefore technology only provides a different medium with which to do so. It concludes that computer literacy is not is not an independent entity, but an extension and an expansion of literacy itself. Questions of the necessity of technological literacy are raised and discussed, and the relationship between "standard" literacy and computer or technological literacy is also analyzed.

From the Paper:

"New technologies, especially computers, are now being used personally as well. According to L.D. Labbo, computers are now being utilized in the home for things like "digital shopping, travel services, studying, mail services, chatting, spiritual counseling, banking, [and] the paying of taxes?" (Labbo, Reinking and McKenna 275). In addition to these functions, the use of technology has increased significantly over the past few years. More people are using cellular phones, "personal digital assistants" (PDAs), handheld computers and other wireless communication devices. Also, ATM machines are now commonplace, and hardly an urban block exists without one or (more frequently) more cash machines available for quick withdrawals."