[NetBehaviour] Iteracy And The Digital Humanities

Thu Oct 13 18:07:29 CEST 2011

Hello Ruth,

This is an interesting subject. After 2000 years since a standardised 
alphabet, at Access Space we're still finding that a significant 
minority of people (10%? 20%?) still aren't functionally literate. Maybe 
they CAN read, but they DON'T read. Picking out meaning from written 
words is a struggle that requires active effort. (In contrast almost 
everyone reading this email will find the process of reading so 
automatic that it's involuntary.)

These people are often highly intelligent, but suffer from a particular 
inability to read fluently. Is this dyslexia or a related, subtle 
learning challenge? Certainly it is a poor experience of formal 
education. I suggest that 80% of the population MAY have grasped basic 
programming skills by the year 4000 - but a significant minority will 
always be left out.

However, even 80% coverage in 2000 years may be unfeasible. Education in 
ICTs is actually regressing, NOT progressing. Back in the 1980's the BBC 
didn't just make computers, they transmitted TV programmes where the 
"theme music" (well, theme sound) was compilable source code. You made 
an recording of the programme on audio tape, and you could load and run 
it. (I did this!)

Now people are being taught ICTs on a functional, not a conceptual level 
- "How to work it" rather than "How it works". In contrast my FIRST 
LESSON in computers was "Writing loops and incrementing variables in BASIC".

In fact, I DON'T believe that people need to understand how to programme 
in order to participate fully in contemporary democracy - but they DO 
need to have a critical appreciation of what technologies are, and their 
social, economic and cultural impacts. You don't need to know how to 
program, but you DO need to know what programming is, how you would 
learn it if you wanted to, and what you can and can't do when you have 
learned it.

Arthur C. Clarke wrote "Any sufficiently advanced technology is 
indistinguishable from magic". The mass of the population is 
(voluntarily, but perhaps not consciously) moving into an increasingly 
magical relationship with technology, at the same time that they are 
engaging with technology more and more.

"How does my iPhone work? Hey, I don't care... But it's kinda cool!"

In terms of power relationships, choosing to have this magical 
relationship with technology is to opt into the serf class of the 
future. Right now the serfs are not gratuitously, and visibly exploited. 
(Though they are gratuitously exploited invisibly!) However, a state of 
powerlessness provides no guarantee against future exploitation.

The IT industry is delighted to encourage this powerlessness - dependent 
consumers guarantee future sales.

There is widespread abuse of the term "understanding":

"How does it work? Hey, just press this button and it works! Now you 
understand!"

So what's needed? NOT loads of programming courses - although they might 
help. But we DO need "Critical Appreciation of Digital Technologies" as 
a part of the core curriculum. This is pretty close to the need for 
"Critical Appreciation of Media Technologies". While people may not need 
to learn (or be capable of learning) programming, ABSOLUTELY EVERYONE 
needs to know what programming is, how the digital industry operates, 
and how they cede power and control through what they do not know. Maybe 
we do need at least a few lessons on "BASIC" to provide concrete 
examples in this curriculum - but also we need awareness of the 
language's platform dependence, strengths and weaknesses, supply chain, 
development model and more. Other programming languages are available.

One final thought - you wrote of the danger that "otherwise we are 
handing over the power to programme our societies to an elite few".

Whoops. This has already happened. Digital networking has facilitated 
the emergence of a global overclass utterly dominant in financial, media 
and political and economic spheres of influence. The question now is 
whether individuals can co-opt emerging technologies to disrupt 
centralised, undemocratic and hegemonic power structures that networked 
digital media technologies have consolidated.

Power to the people!

James
=====

On 13/10/11 14:59, ruth catlow wrote:
> Nice!
>
> I watched a video of Doug Rushkcoff talk to a gathering of Etsy folk
> about establishing peer to peer economies.
> http://www.rushkoff.com/blog/2011/9/22/toward-a-peer-to-peer-economy.html
>
> As part of his talk he said that it has taken over 2000 years (after the
> invention of the alphabet) for mass literacy to take hold.
>
> And that in order to participate fully in contemporary democracy we all
> now need to learn basic computer programming (he reckons most people
> would need 2 weeks for a basic grasp of principles and elementary
> programming ability). On the principle that otherwise we are handing
> over the power to programme our societies to an elite few.
>
> What does everyone else think?
> As a remedial level programmer (I learned some php once, used to be able
> to build Drupal sites, could cut and paste javascript and perl, know my
> way around HTML and ccs- with ref to the web) I'm interested to know
> what people who do it all the time think.
>
> Do we need to programme to have a say in contemporary democracy?
>
> : /
> R
>
>
>
> On 12/10/2011 19:06, Rob Myers wrote:
>    
>> David Berry (whose excellent "Philosophy Of Computing" I reviewed for
>> Furtherfield recently - ) has blogged about "iteracy" as a form of
>> computational literacy -
>>
>> http://stunlaw.blogspot.com/2011/09/iteracy-reading-writing-and-running.html
>>
>> "I would like to suggest that iteracy might serve as the name for the
>> specific skills used for understanding code and algorithmic culture – as
>> indeed literacy (understanding texts) and numeracy (understanding
>> numbers) do in a similar context. That is, iteracy is specifically the
>> practice or being able to read and write code, rather than the more
>> extensive notion of digital Bildung"
>>
>> And his next book looks really good as well -
>>
>> http://stunlaw.blogspot.com/2011/09/understanding-digital-humanities.html
>>
>> - Rob.
>> _______________________________________________
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>> NetBehaviour at netbehaviour.org
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>>
>>      
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