<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><BR><DIV><DIV>On Jan 31, 2007, at 4:15 PM, Michael Tobis wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; ">I don't see why IT momentum should have anything to do with teaching logical thinking to people who probably aren't going to be professional programmers. Pretty UIs are not computer literacy any more than Excel spreadsheets are.<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN><BR><BR></SPAN></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>I think you've got a high bar for computer literacy here -- understanding of excel spreadsheets is much more germane to most people's interactions with computers than is programming in python. </DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>There was a time that most people who drove cars needed to know quite a bit about how they worked so as to get themselves out of having to sit bit the roadside as breakdowns were more frequent. Now, trouble shooting fuel injection problems or other engine operations is a specialized skill not at all required of the majority of people who use cars even for their livelihood. </DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>My point is that "computer literacy" no longer means "programming literacy" or even "command line literacy" just like "programming literacy" no longer necessarily implies "assembly literacy" or even "C literacy". And, moreover, there's nothing wrong with that -- far from it in fact, if you think about it from a design perspective, IMHO. </DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>A slight casting of Dean's point would be that teaching a 'CS course' in high school often means "computer literacy" and not "programming literacy" and that the majority of the people in high school 'CS' courses aren't going to be interested in "programming literacy" unless it's done in a flashy way that keeps their attention by yielding visible results quickly. Overall, this is the epitome of high school, if not human nature, IMHO. Sure, I appreciate the year and a half of logic coursework I did in college and I do think it helped me, but I don't expect everyone to want to or need to go down that course for the world to be a happy place.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite">Skills are transient. Develop intelligence and you can acquire skills as needed. </BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>You can teach skills much more readily than you can teach intelligence. There's a time and a place for both and given the ever increasing ubiquity of computers, basic skills are essential, just as driving is an essential skill for a good majority of Americans. You shouldn't need to understand how to build a car to drive one and you shouldn't need to understand how to program a computer to use one, no matter how valuable and abstractable or extendable the former is.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Moreover, if the above were true, university communities would be much different places, but that's a whole different line of discussion...</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>-ted</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR> <SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "></SPAN><DIV><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"></SPAN> </DIV><BR></DIV></BODY></HTML>