View from Bangladesh: The New Literacy

"The definition of literacy changed in the last decade of the 20th century. This new concept of "computer literacy" is an essential tool in everyday modern life. A highly qualified individual -- even one with a doctorate degree -- without the basic knowledge of computers would likely be considered as computer illiterate!

A simple, yet elegant way to define computer literacy is "the ability to achieve desired outcomes via a computer." The tasks comprising computer literacy vary in different environments. For general users, computer literacy can be said to have three components: understanding of basic computing principles, knowing how to use at least one computer operating system, and proficiency with specific software programs.

In most places of business in the modern world, having a computer system is standard practice. Computers are used in auto repair shops to assess cars. In advanced countries, no one finds books in the library by looking in a card catalog. Instead, patrons search the library's computerized database. Doctors' offices utilize computers to store patient information. In most places in those countries, the computer is a basic tool that everyone needs to use. It is in one's best interest to become computer literate....

Information and computer literacy, in the conventional sense, are functionally valuable technical skills. But information literacy should in fact be conceived more broadly as a new liberal art that extends from knowing how to use computers and access information to critical reflection on the nature of information itself, its technical infrastructure, and its social, cultural and even philosophical context and impact. It is as essential to the mental framework of the educated information-age citizen as the trivia of basic liberal arts (grammar, logic and rhetoric) was to the educated person in medieval society."

Click here for the full article online.