A big problem with teaching internet literacy is that it would amount to teaching moving target: change is so hard to teach, since it keeps changing :-)
On a tangential note, I'm trying to come out of retirement (sabbatical :-) after about five years, and whoa, it's incredible how much has changed, even though I've tried to stay more or less current the whole time. Forget SourceForge, it's all on GitHub now! Does anyone even consider the possibility that a user might have JavaScript disabled in their browser? You wouldn't get very far these days. What's this cloud thing again? Makes me want to give up and go back to watching X-Files reruns :-) ;; Gary On Jun 18, 2013, at 11:48 AM, Owen Densmore <o...@backspaces.net> wrote: > I'm starting to think the Root Cause is simply ignorance. I don't mean that > to be as harsh as it sounds. It's simply that not only the core tech changes > rapidly, but now the whole web-app ecology has caught people by surprise. > > I know this via two recent family events. > > One was that we found a web site that simply did not run with Snow Leopard. > Obsolescence and upgrade is a sneaky way to push folks into unfamiliar > territory, and much more likely to make mistakes. This is especially true > with Apple's "Back To The Mac" approach which tries to converge the > iPhone/Pad/Pod/TV world with the more standard desktop. And behind this BTTM > is much more use of the "cloud", and more exposure. > > The second was a lament by a family member that they couldn't do things as > easily as they once could. And this is a person who put together a Linux > system a in the '90s! The problem here was similar. Way too many accounts, > logins, passwords .. and lack of password standards .. along with the > evolution away from the computer to the cloud .. and with so many devices to > keep coordinated. > > Although similar to the first obsolescence, I think the second is more > subtle. Do you remember migrating from your first computer to a second? > Surprised all your email disappeared? And all the subtle configurations that > had to also be migrated? Then the shock when you had both a desktop and a > laptop and the email got split between the two until you grok'd IMAP and/or > gmail/yahoo/ms .. all of whom "took care of you" but to whom you gave huge > access to your information? Remember changing ISPs in the early days and > having to tell everyone you have a new email address? .. and you then > figured out you needed your own DNS? It goes on. > > The fact is that we need to license use of the web just as we do driving or > amateur radio. Yup. An internet merit badge! I'm quite serious .. we > somehow have migrated slowly but surely into the hands of a not very nice > future via the lack of reasonable internet education. And every computer > with poor security hygiene is a threat to me, not just the computer's owner. > > -- Owen
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