What are information technology's key qualifications?

ABSTRACT

What kind of IT key qualifications do we have to teach in order to lessen the digital divide between educated and uneducated IT users, and to enable students who live in an IT-rich world to gain insights into the underlying science?

In this paper we argue that key qualifications, IT skills, and IT or media literacy can not be reduced to the teaching of applicational aspects, that is, to the functional characteristics of the IT systems in question. Instead, IT key qualifications consist in knowledge about the concepts of computer science.

Applying the concept of educational lenses (described in previous papers) to a course on IT key qualifications, we are able to obtain a more focused approach towards a definition of IT skills.

REFERENCES

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  K. Computing Milieux
  K.3 COMPUTERS AND EDUCATION
      K.3.2 Computer and Information Science Education
          Subjects: Computer science education

Additional Classification:
  K. Computing Milieux
  K.3 COMPUTERS AND EDUCATION
      K.3.2 Computer and Information Science Education
          Subjects: Information systems education

General Terms:
Experimentation, Human Factors

Keywords:
CS ed research, IT key qualifications, computer science education research, computers and society, curriculum issues, educational lenses, gender, key qualifications, pedagogy, wider access