Computer and Information Literacy: A Moving Target Jack Beidler James R. Sidbury University of Scranton Scranton, PA (717)

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 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