Technological Literacy

"Literacy" and "numeracy" are familiar concepts. Someone is literate if he/she can read and write at a basic level. We do not require someone to write as well as Shakespeare to be considered literate. We call someone numerate if he/she has a mastery of basic numerical operations, such as might be required when shopping or dealing with a bank account. We do not require that a person be a Field Prize winner to be considered numerate (and indeed, some of those folk may not be too great at arithmetic).

"Technological literacy" might be defined by analogy with literacy and numeracy. Someone might be considered literate if he/she has achieved a basic understanding of technology. The analogy is strained, in part because there are so many areas of technology. It seems common to consider fundamental ability to utilize a computer and the Internet to be "technological literacy", but I would suggest that is only one aspect of the literacy involved. I think there is a health technology literacy, since everyone should understand how to take a temperature, the basics techniques of personal hygiene, and have some understanding of immunization and the medications prescribed for himself/herself and his/her immediate family.

Similarly, everyone should have a basic understanding of the technological artifacts and their operation in his/her household. Of course, the implements in an American middle-class urban household will be very different than those in an African, poor, rural household. Thus the standards for "technological literacy" will differ from place to place, and indeed from neighborhood to neighborhood. The skills and knowledge needed to be considered technologically literate as a farmer would be quite different than those needed for an urban factory worker.

This latter point suggests also that there will be different aspects of technological literacy involved for different roles that the person may play. There is one level of understanding needed to participate intelligently in the political process, another perhaps to be able to work in unskilled jobs within the economy, and still another for one's household roles.

Considering the workplace, there are many levels of technological ability beyond that which one would consider basic "technological literacy". Thus we have terms like "journeyman," "foreman" and "engineer" to indicate those who have achieved mastery via experience, on-the-job training, vocational education, or university training.

There seems to be agreement that lifelong learning is now required almost everywhere to maintain technological literacy, both as the standards continue to become more stringent, and as technologies change. There also seems to be agreement that current levels of technological literacy are too low both in the United States and in developing nations.

• Wikipedia has an interesting and useful, if brief, discussion of technological literacy.
• The National Academs has a website titled Technically Speaking which was intended to explain "what technological literacy is, why it’s important, and what’s being done to improve it."
• The website is adapted from a 2002 publication of the National Academy of Engineering also titled Technically Speaking.