Using Digital Media to Teach Computer Literacy
A Preliminary Thesis Proposal
by Sarah Wheeler
Abstract
In the year 2007, computers are everywhere. They are on our desks, sure, but they are also in our cars, in our phones, in our music players, at the gas station and the supermarket and the bank, collecting, storing, and outputting information to us, for us, and about us. With such a high level of technology surrounding us every day, an outsider might assume that we all, as users and beneficiaries of this technology, have an intimate understanding of how and why it all works. They would be surprised to learn, however, that that is not the case. Unfortunately, a vast majority of the people who use, work with, and enjoy the benefits of computers every day have very little understanding of how they work. And this is a fact that needs to change.
Without a basic understanding of how a computer works, many individuals can be tempted to see it as a “magic box,” fearing the intelligence that it appears to have, or expecting it to have capabilities that it can not have. I believe that the spread of computer literacy is vital to the future of technological advancement, therefore, my thesis project will focus on harnessing the power and prevalence of digital media to create a comprehensive media experience for teaching computer literacy. Through the use of the web, 3D modeling and animation, and an interactive Flash platform, my goal is to create an educational site that will guide users through the basic elements and functions of a computer so that, in the end, they will have a better understanding of these machines that are so prevalent in their everyday lives.
Conceptual Foundations
As computers are becoming more accessible to people all around the world, and as computers are being used in more everyday and invisible contexts, people are becoming more complacent to the presence of computers in their lives without becoming any more knowledgeable about how computers work. In fact, as the elements of the computer that we interact with on the screen become further and further removed from the hardware and binary outputs that are a computer's basic function, people are becoming less likely to view the computer as a tool that helps them accomplish tasks, and more likely to see a computer as a “magic box” with a mind of its own. In his article, “Why the Digital Computer is Dead,” author Chris Chesher argues that computers should be renamed “invocational media” because he believes that the digital and computative qualities of a computer are no longer important to its users. He believes that since most people use their personal computers for viewing, listening to, and interacting with different forms of media, that the machine needs to have a name more in line with people's expectations for it. This is just one of the problems that arises when people lack and understanding of what computers really are and how they really work.
Chris Chesher wants us to discard the term “digital computer” simply because the personal computers we use every day no longer exhibit the same qualities of early digital computers, which gained the name as a result of the fact that they stored all data in binary numeric form (the term “digital” as it relates to computers means something expressed in numeric form), and that their primary function was as a computation device for mathematical data. It took many layers of computer languages to even give the computer a visual interface, and even more to bring us the sleek, visually appealing programs we have today, but we cannot discard the term “computer” just yet, because at its most basic level, the digital computer is still the same machine, still making mathematical computations and still sending and receiving data as a series of ones and zeros. If, as a society, we choose to forget this fact, or discard it because we no longer understand its meaning, our lack of knowledge could have serious consequences.
The problem with a lack of basic knowledge about how computers function arises when people develop either a strong fear of computers or a complacency towards their use and prevalence in society. When a person is overly fearful of technology, he is more likely to erect strong and unnecessary barriers to its use and advancement without considering the benefits that such advancement can bring to society. Fear of technology also leads to fear of users of technology, as we can see in overarching assumptions by people of older generations that the Internet, video games, cell phones, and other modern technologies will cause young people to develop self-centered, anti-social, or criminal behaviors. On the flip side, there are many people out there for whom a lack of understanding about how computers work has lead to a sense of complacency concerning their widespread use and infiltration into everyday life. The complacent individual is one like Chesher, who wants to redefine computers by the way they are used by a certain group of people, forgetting that the digital computer is still alive and well in our government databases, our scientific laboratories, our household appliances, our cars, and any other piece of modern technology that has a digital component to it. The complacent individual uses a computer without realizing the effect that it has on their everyday life; they make no stand on computer issues, they do not concern themselves with computer privacy, they have no say on the wisdom of using RFID chips in passports, or government snooping into their emails because they do not see how it affects them. They stand on the opposite side of the fence from the overly fearful, questioning nothing about technology rather than questioning everything. Obviously, a healthy medium lies somewhere in the middle, but the only way to bridge the gap is through an increase in computer literacy.
Project Goals
The purpose of my thesis project is to create a dynamic digital media experience that will help advance computer literacy in adults. For the purpose of this project, computer literacy is defined not as knowing how to use a computer, but rather as an understanding of how a computer works – what its basic components are, how they communicate with one another, and how they all work together with the software programs and the user to accomplish the tasks that people use computers for every day. There is a wide range of topics that can be covered on the subject of computer literacy, everything from learning about basic computer components, to an understanding of email and Internet etiquette, to learning how to create music and videos on the computer and how to interface other media devices with a computer. My primary focus will be on the physical elements of the computer: the hardware, the software, and how they work together to accomplish tasks, provide an understandable user interface, and allow people to use them in so many different ways.
Most people, regardless of computer literacy level, use computers for certain basic tasks – creating documents, sending email, and browsing the Internet to view digital media. Therefore, in order to reach a wide range of people with this project, I will be designing it as a website that contains an interactive digital video about the computer and how it works. In this way, I hope to reach people by using common and comfortable forms of computer interaction to enhance their understanding of computers. Computers are a unique medium through which to teach, so I will be doing research on effective and ineffective methods of conveying information online in order to design a website that is conducive to drawing people in to learn.
Through the use of surveys taken before and after viewing the interactive video, I hope to gain information about the general computer literacy levels of people before and after they view the site. The introductory survey will focus on what people think they know about computers, what they don't know, what they would like to know, and what worries and excites them about computers, while the end survey will focus on what they remember from the video, what they learned that they didn't know before, and how the experience has changed their view of computers. The video will be interactive in the sense that users can choose what they want to learn more about, how in-depth they want to go into each component's description, and how long they choose to stay. It will not be a linear video, but rather a series of small videos and animations that the user can interact with through clicks of the mouse. There will also be a section of the website devoted to purely static textual and visual representations of the same information, so that users who choose to learn from that medium will be able to gain the same amount of information as users who choose to learn from the interactive video.
In creating this project, I plan to use my experience with web programming, Flash programming and animation, 3DS Max image creation, and digital video creation and deployment to create the backbone of this project. I will utilize my undergraduate degree in computer science as the basis for my understanding of computers, which will help inform the information that will be conveyed so that it can be understood by those who have not studied computers in the same way that I have. I will also be using knowledge gleaned from courses in anthropology and human affairs to assist me in the creation of the surveys and the gleaning of useful data from them, which I will use to judge the educational effectiveness of my content and my design.
In the end, my completed project will consist of a unique, well-designed website containing informational surveys, an interactive video, and textual information specifically designed to help people learn about how computers work. By collecting user data off this website, I hope to gain insight into the levels of computer literacy among the population, as well as information about the site's effectiveness as a teaching tool.
Outline and Timeline
Fall 2007
Project Research and Proposal
Create, hand out, and collect preliminary surveys
Obtain site host and domain name
Create backbone site design
Organize information to be put into interactive video, write script
Get project advisor
Winter 2008
Design interactive video
Complete website outline, open to initial survey respondents for feedback
Receive creative and critical feedback on content and design
Introduce preliminary video, completion survey
Revise components based on user feedback
Spring 2008
Present final website design
Get final feedback from testers
Modify and debug all elements
Complete project and final report
Present project to advisory committee
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