Computer and Information Literacy: A Moving Target

Jack Beidler

James R. Sidbury

University of Scranton

Scranton, PA 18510

beidler@cs.uofs.edu

(717) 941-7774

Introduction

• Background

• Goals

• Experience

• Future

Background

• C/I Lit Freshman Requirement in new curriculum

• Concerns– What is taught in this course?– Will the course be relevant in the near

future at the college level?

Background

• Liberal Art Basis - The Seven Liberal Arts– Trivium - Language, Logic, Rhetoric– Quadrivium - Arithmetic, Geometry,

Music, and Astronomy

• Where does C/I Lit fit?– Trivium - Obtain, evaluate, disseminate

information

Background

• Not teaching about CS• Not excel• Not keystoking

• Computing as a tool• Spreadsheet as a tool• Role of computing

resources in problem solving

Goals

• University Committee on C/I Lit

• Computing as a Problem Solving Tool

• Five General Areas of Interest– Word Processing– Data analysis (Spreadsheets, Maple, …)– Graphics – Electronic Communications– Database

Goals

• Outcomes– Be able to use computer and information

resources in an integrated way (computer tools, campus computing, library and INTERNET) to solve meaningful problems in the individual's area of interest.

– Effective use of electronic presentation and dissemination tools

Goals

• Outcomes– Describe how a computing system and its

subunits (hardware and software) work.– Understand the impact of computer

information technology on modern society.

Experience

• Course Structure– 2 - 1hr. Lectures (2 credit hours)– 1 - 2hr. Lab. (1 credit hour)

• Required by all freshman - incl. CS, CIS

• Class size - 28 max. lecture / 16 lab

Experience

• Prior Experiences of Students– All with minimum word processing skills– Few with spreadsheet or other experience– Growing Internet experience, incl.

Search engines

• Pushing the envelope - The Questionnaire Project

The Questionnaire Project

• Create a questionnaire

• Place it on the web, with cgi support

• Collect data

• Spreadsheet Analysis

• Graphics

• Final report

The Questionnaire Project

• http://www.academic.uofs.edu/faculty/beidler/CILit/fall_97.html

• Web Support– Working with software people– Web-izing the questionnaire– The data file

• Including IP - raises privacy issues

• Time

Future

• Advanced WP

• Advanced Internet - Search Engines

• Focused C/I Lit– Same goals– Directed Applications

• Additional Courses

Web Development -- Current CI/L course contents

• one lab on creating simple web page

• Some instructors have their students publish this page to the University web server

Web Development -- New Course for Non-technical

students• On Unix platform accessed via

WinNT/Notepad/Netscape Composer

• Basic HTML through forms

• Use/modification of existing JavaScript

• Integrate with current Web course for majors

Future

• Fun or boring

• For Students

• For Faculty

• Labs resources vs. grunt work