The comment about competency vs literacy is a really good one.

So I’ll end with a caution about relying on the word literacy. It’s a word I’m deeply troubled by, loaded with historical and social baggage and it’s often misused as a gatekeeping concept, an either/or state; one is either literate or illiterate.

In my own teaching and research I’ve replaced my use of literacy with the idea of competency. I’m influenced here by the way teachers of a foreign language want their students to use language when they study abroad. They don’t use terms like literacy or fluency, they talk about competency. Because the thing with competency is, it’s highly contextualized, situated, and fluid. Competency means knowing the things that are required in order to do the other things you need to do. It’s not the same for everyone, and it varies by place, time, and circumstance.

via » 5 BASIC STATEMENTS ON COMPUTATIONAL LITERACY SAMPLE REALITY.

Here’s a summary of the 5, along with the take-aways:

1. 10 PRINT 2+3

1. Code CAN be obvious – assuming, of course, you understand the fundamentals of computer languages. If you don’t, you will be routinely mistaken. It’s those fundamentals people need to learn when they learn programming, not the picayune details of the specific language they are using this minute.

2. 10 PRINT “HELLO WORLD”

1. Communicating with the “outside world” is an important thing to understand.

3. 10 PRINT “GO TO STATEMENT CONSIDERED HARMFUL”: GOTO 10

1. “Programming is a set of practices, with its own history and tensions. ” Discipline is important.

4. 10 REM PRINT “GOODBYE CRUEL WORLD”

1. “Yes, code does what it says. But it also says things it does not do. ” Also, annotation is important.

5. 10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1));:GOTO 10

1. “There’s a limit to the usefulness of the concept of literacy when talking about code.”

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