Technological Literacy: where do we go from here?

ABSTRACT

This paper argues that there is an urgent need for a new, essentially cultural, definition of technological literacy. For teachers to be ‘technologically literate’ (and, through them, their pupils) they need to learn how to ‘read’ technology, treating it not as a series of technical artifacts but as a ‘text’. To do this they need to be alerted to work outside Education and Educational Technology, in the Sociology of Technology and in Cultural Studies in particular. Furthermore, the charge that technology is in danger of over‐vocationalisfng Education needs to be taken seriously. The precise relationship between teaching, learning and computers still needs to be clarified: there are still too many questions, too few answers. The paper ends by stressing how important it is for teachers to be encouraged and resourced to engage in their own observational, evaluative research into the impact of computers on the overall ‘ecology’ of their own classrooms.