Proposed Technology Literacy Certification Curriculum
Why Do We Need a Technology Literacy Certification Curriculum?
Increasingly there are micro-tools which empower workers to publish and businesses to run efficiently. But how can training be formalized and valued within organizations? And how can organizations know if a person has all the requisite tools and experience? I firmly believe there is a need for technology literacy certification.
Given the perfect storm of cultural change that is rapidly erupting, the time is now for career and business 2.0 knowledge/literacy skills. Although there are a plethora of issues such a literacy program could include–I believe the following form the fundamentals for such a certification:
• Enterprise 2.0 tools for cloud computing, software as service, and Google apps
• Advanced Google search skills
• Advanced social search techniques
• Blogs, wikis, video, and podcasts
• Perhaps productive social networking using Facebook, Linked in, Ning, Jigsaw, and blogs.
• Assessing digital vs. non-digital alternatives. (tracking resource, funding, and hours saved)
• Dealing with information overload
• What are the demands and struggles of the knowledge/creative worker today (and what will they be in the future)
• How have the fundamentals of communication (ethos, logos, and mythos) changed in the web 2.0 communications ecosystem?
• Techniques for dealing with virtual teamwork and project management (learning to use the collaborative infrastructure and software as well as work effectively with human motivations, failures, goals, and aspirations)
• How do business and information travel in the world of flat earth and globalization.
• Content vs. People
• Optional: open innovation + Wikinomics
• Optional: Visual communication
• Optional: Stats and analytics
• Of course advanced techniques and best practices could form another level of certification.
• In could include more general business and career oriented info
At this crossroads in technological history its imperative to have a defining criteria for someone who merely uses Google to one who is a skilled Google ninja.
There could be woven into a curriculum which had both a strong experiential and business oriented project based learning as well as a strong emphasis in the humanities and cultural trend watching.
I’ve discussed this topic in various capacities before:
• Web 2.0 for Higher Education
• 21st Century Skills by Tony Wagner
• The need for media literacy 2.0 at the college level (and in enterprise)
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I think it should include something like this short e-booklet:
http://www.stanford.edu/group/e145/cgi-bin/winter/drupal/upload/handouts/brainstorming.pdf
One possible benchmark is the program that Microsoft has created:
http://www.microsoft.com/about/corporatecitizenship/citizenship/giving/programs/up/digitalliteracy/default.mspx
Also, High Tech High might also other possible options.
This post also has some interesting insight on what would be included (specifically the diagram)
http://librariesandtransliteracy.wordpress.com/2010/04/28/digital-literacy-across-the-curriculum-handbook/
I think however, that much of the education would be on the creative side–with the technical part taking a back seat.
This list compiled from MIT deserves to be on the list of social media & new media literacies:
The new skills include:
1. Play: the capacity to experiment with one’s surroundings as a form of problem-solving.
2. Performance: the ability to adopt alternative identities for the purpose of improvisation and discovery.
3. Simulation: the ability to interpret and construct dynamic models of real-world processes.
4. Appropriation: the ability to meaningfully sample and remix media content.
5. Multitasking: the ability to scan one’s environment and shift focus as needed to salient details.
6. Distributed cognition: the ability to interact meaningfully with tools that expand mental capacities.
7. Collective intelligence: the ability to pool knowledge and compare notes with others toward a common goal.
8. Judgment: the ability to evaluate the reliability and credibility of different information sources.
9. Transmedia navigation: The ability to follow the flow of stories and information across multiple modalities.
10. Networking: the ability to search for, synthesize, and disseminate information.
11. Negotiation: the ability to travel across diverse communities, discerning and respecting multiple perspectives, and grasping and following alternative norms.
Marcia Conner also suggests one more: awareness of issues of transparency and privacy.
http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/marcia-conner/learn-all-levels/new-media-skills