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CSTB: "what everyone needs to know about information technology"
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Date: Fri, 21 Nov 1997 11:38:10 -0500
From: Gary Strong
Please post widely...
The Computer Science and Telecommunications Board (CSTB) of the National Research Council is undertaking a project to identify what everyone needs to know about information technology. A major part of CSTB's task is to develop a consensus for the appropriate definitions of "everyone", "know", and "information technology". The committee responsible for this project is chaired by Larry Snyder, professor of computer science and engineering at the University of Washington. The full membership of the committee is attached to the end of this note.
In order to collect input from the wider community, the committee has developed a number of questions on which it seeks broad input. These questions are directed at information technologists (e.g., computer and telecommunications scientists and engineers) and are described below sets of other questions will be addressed to employers, educators, and other stakeholder groups.
1 -- For purposes of this discussion, the committee provisionally distinguishes in a loose and informal way between fundamental concepts, applications of fundamental concepts, and engineering and design principles used in applying concepts. To illustrate, a concept might be "instruction interpretation." An application of that concept might be "Java byte-code interpretation." An engineering principle might be "design under constraint" (e.g., designing a Java interpreter under the constraint of limited memory or bandwidth.")
1a -- What are the fundamental concepts of information technology that an educated adult should know? (Interpret information technology broadly to include computing and communications.) For each concept: -- describe it -- identify the age or educational level at which you believe it should first be introduced and -- explain how it might be introduced.
1b -- What are the essential applications of the fundamental concepts?
1c -- What are the essential engineering and/or design principles relevant to information technology?
For questions 1b and 1c, repeat the bullets under question 1a.
2 -- How do you expect the essential concepts, applications, and engineering/design principles described in your answers to change over time (as information technology evolves)? How should the pedagogical process deal with such changes? How can/should individuals be taught to learn about how to use new and never-before-seen computational artifacts (e.g., new applications, services, hardware devices, software packages)?
3 -- How should concepts and skills be balanced in information technology literacy? How do/should concepts and skills complement each other in information technology literacy? How do they compete with each other? (In other words, how and to what extent is there a trade-off in learning about concepts versus skills?) [For purposes of this discussion, the committee regards a "skill" as facility with a specific computational tool or artifact such as a spreadsheet.]
4 -- How can individuals best learn the limitations of information technology? How can they learn to make informed personal/social/policy decisions about issues that involve information technology? The committee invites you to submit your answers to these questions in the form of a short position paper (5 pages or less) in addition, please identify your field of expertise and your institutional affiliation. All responses will be considered by the committee. In addition, respondents may be invited to participate in a workshop to be held in Irvine, California on January 15, 1998 whose purpose is to discuss answers to these and other related questions. Or, they may be invited to revise their position paper for inclusion in the committee's final report.
DEADLINES: December 15, 1997, for those who wish to be considered for participation in the workshop. February 1, 1998 for those who wish their input to be considered by the committee.
EMAIL ADDRESS FOR INPUT: IT-Lit@nas.edu (This address should be active by Friday, October 24, 1997) FAX FOR INPUT: 202-334-2318 U.S. MAIL ADDRESS FOR INPUT: Dr. Herb Lin, Study Director CSTB National Research Council Room HA-560 2101 Constitution Ave, NW Washington, DC 20418 202-334-3191 voice
COMMITTEE MEMBERSHIP Larry Snyder, Chair, (University of Washington) Andries van Dam (Brown University) Al Aho (Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies) Jeff Ullman (Stanford University) Allen Tucker (Bowdoin College) Marcia Linn (University of California at Berkeley) Arnold Packer (Johns Hopkins University)
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Gary W. Strong, Program Director, Interactive Systems National Science Foundation, 4201 Wilson Blvd., Room 1115 Arlington, VA 22230 (703)306-1928; FAX: (703)306-0599; Email: gstrong@nsf.gov URL: http://www.cise.nsf.gov/iris/ISPhome.html Grantees' projects: http://www.cse.ogi.edu/CSLU/isgw97/
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