🖥️ Teach Computer Literacy Before AI
Districts display artificial intelligence of their own by placing AI over foundational skills
Series Overture
Despite falling literacy scores (NAEP) and computer literacy scores (ICILS), many districts display artificial intelligence of their own by worrying about AI instead basic computer literacy. Without computer literacy, typing an essay means more questions about software than content. This negatively impacts academic performance. Computer literacy exists in no-man’s land, relevant to all but taught by none. In some cases, teaching it means not teaching your subject.
Interfaces require instruction. Every digital button exists like a physical tool. Even intuitive software requires mental models. Yet computer illiteracy hides behind many things: button mashing, computer illiterate adults, and Chromebooks themselves. Every paperless push deprives students from the physical world and its metaphors. We’ve yet to realize the implications of rejecting the desktop metaphor.
Computers require many simultaneous literacies: reading, writing, typing, and software. Learning implies sequence, but these literacies function like legs on a stool. Without one, the stool falls. Functional illiteracy looks like poor software knowledge and visa-versa. If you can’t read the page, you can’t read the screen. In practice, those with additional needs fall further and further behind.
AI is here. AI is not going away. AI will become as ubiquitous as the spell check or the calculator. And like learning to spell or add, though, paper should precede screens. I’m just not convinced that many schools—teachers, principals, and superintendents alike—understand the full scope of the problems. Right now students need computer literacy more than they need AI.
In Part One:
I. Software Crowds Content
II. The Mythical Digital Native
III. Terrible Tablets and No-Man's Land
IV. Ugly Sweaters and The New Kahoot
Interlude: The 2023 ICIL Results
Preview: Interfaces Require Instruction / The Missing Desktop Metaphor
shiny thingism: (v.) 1. forcing shiny things because they are shiny; 2. following fads and treating toys as tools
I. Software Crowds Content
Quick! What’s the keyboard shortcut to bolding text? Adding a weblink? Inserting a new blank page? (Answers at the end.)
If you hand a toddler a touchscreen, they seemingly learn in seconds. Without reading, cause and effect teaches: Touch means actions. The touchscreen seems so intuitive that computers have no learning curves. Maybe we’re born knowing how?
So if you hand a teenager a Chromebook, you’d assume they’d surf basic software like professionals. After all, they’ve been using computers since kindergarten. By middle school, basic productivity should be old hat.
Yet they can’t.
Lately computer literacy feels more and more elusive. Typing essays becomes an ordeal as we spend more time with software than content. Questions about basic formatting and navigation paralyze class. Each class means one step forwards, two steps backwards.
Eventually I created paint-by-the-numbers workshop over Google Docs which addressed navigation, formatting, and basic keyboard shortcuts. They learned about managing files, naming schemes, and the all-knowing Find function. Thirty minutes saved hours of questioning.
But deeper problems remained: Software troubles mean computer troubles. While their button mashing became more deliberate, students still struggled to navigate basic interfaces, including Google Drive and Learning Management Systems (LMS) like Canvas. Grades reflected poor computer skills as much as poor literacy skills. Most never question how the two illiteracies intermingle.
Having taught eighth grade for the past eight years, I will testify how NAEP scores add solid data points to everyday experience. You were only shocked if you weren’t paying attention—or listening to teachers. However, NAEP scores weren’t the only falling eighth grade scores in 2023.
What if I told you that computer literacy scores likewise fell in 2023? What if these problems existed somewhere between causation and correlation? (If you can’t read the page, you can’t read the screen.) And what if the system isn’t built for teaching computer literacy?
II. The Mythical Digital Native
So what is computer literacy? A cursory definition says the knowledge or ability to use computers efficiently. This ranges from everyday use to reasoning to coding.
The International Computer and Information Literacy Study (ICILS) provides quadrennial tests to eighth graders over computer and information literacy and computational thinking. This test has been administered in 2013, 2018, and 2023 with proficiency ranges scaled to 407, 492, 576, and 661 points.
Note: As an organization, ICILS exists in a web of alphabet soup agencies for educational statistics. A full description, however, goes beyond my aims here.
How does the ICILS define these competencies? According to their site, the 2023 framework defines each skill as follows:
computer and information literacy: "an individual’s ability to use computers to investigate, create, and communicate in order to participate effectively at home, at school, in the workplace, and in society"
computational thinking: "an individual’s ability to recognize aspects of real-world problems which are appropriate for computational formulation and to evaluate and develop algorithmic solutions to those problems so that the solutions could be operationalized with a computer"
So what do the numbers say about computer literacy? For brevity, I’ll refer to digested results.
In 2019, Valerie Strauss published a piece for The Washington Post titled “Today’s kids might be digital natives — but a new study shows they aren’t close to being computer literate.” In it, Sara Dexter explains the outcomes from the 2018 ICILS. The key takeaway concerns students working independently:
Only 2 percent of students scored at the highest levels implied by digital native status, and only another 19 percent of the 42,000 students assessed in 14 countries and educational systems could work independently with computers as information-gathering and management tools.
So this was 2019. If only 19% in 14 countries proved capable of working independently, what would happen—you know, just theoretically—if entire nations shifted to screen-based education for years at a time? Certain problems would compound, right?
As Dexter parses through the study, she highlights the importance of top-down competency. She explains, “School leaders are second only to teachers in their influence on students’ learning. They set the important conditions for teachers to develop students’ abilities to thrive in the digital world.” Full disclosure: I cheered when reading that line.
Dexter explains how teachers are not solely responsible for student outcomes. Good leadership and sound policy creates the conditions for teachers—and students—to be successful. However, good policy in technology requires knowledge at all levels. I may as well quote her in full:
The vast majority of school leaders receive little to no preparation to lead ed technology in their school. The U.S. system for principal preparation needs to expand its ed tech prep for leaders, to allow them to learn how technology is a part of the instructional leadership practices so essential to their role.
Just think: This was 2019. How has this changed in the past six years? Then again, don’t answer that.
Administrative demands often place principals years behind teachers with knowledge in educational technology—let alone the daily MacGyvering of making it work. And that’s okay: My bosses should manage buildings smoothly, not give me formatting tips on Canvas. However, these constraints create their own secondary issues as shiny thingism takes over.
What did the 2023 ICILS test reveal? More on that later.
III. Terrible Tablets and No-Man's Land
So if the survey says most students lack basic proficiency, this forces an obvious question: Why? After years of day-to-day classroom experience, I have a few theories:
1. Chromebooks themselves obscure teaching literacy by merging key elements. Whether I type from my Lenovo IdeaPad or blue iMac, I start from the desktop and move to software. My devices default to local storage, although I mostly opt for cloud storage with documents these days (to move between devices).
Chromebooks, however, merge the operating system, the browser, and basic file management. Users skip the desktop for a browser-based experience. Files default to cloud storage. As mental model, it oversimplifies and obscures.
Imagine teaching a stick shift while driving an automatic: Since the car does the work, explaining the clutch feels imaginary. In the same way, Chromebooks lack such basic features that teaching actual computer literacy means explaining nonexistent parts. Computing is the browser!
When researching for this post, I found a 2015 BBC post called “Tablets 'eroding' children's digital skills." In it, a report from Australia's National Assessment Programme, surveying some 10,500+ students, found falling digital literacy rates between 2011 and 2015. The culprit? The type of computer matters. As the per the article, the 145 page report states:
"We cannot expect students to become proficient on important employability and life skills, just by using computing devices for games and social interaction," it said. "They also need to be taught the relevant knowledge, understanding and skills.” (Emphasis mine.)
Not all computers are equal. Tablets are not laptops. Minecraft is not Microsoft 365. But if you mistake button mashing for proficiency, you might be part of the problem.
2. Computer illiterate adults confuse button mashing for knowledge, acting as poor judges of competency. We can't teach what we don't know, and if adults don't understand computers, they will neither require nor teach certain skills. Many outright favor no-tech or low-tech solutions. An anecdote works here.
Once during an all-staff in-service, a building-wide spreadsheet acted finicky with testing data. The culprit? A dataset was shifted by one cell creating reference errors, like a digital pin the tail on the donkey. Easy fix. When I explained the problem, several coworkers all but yelled, saying they “didn’t understand coding.”
Why don’t adults understand? Two reasons: Early education and ongoing education.
As early education, my high school had a computer apps class in 2003 which explored Microsoft Office in depth. That class created robust mental models which still serve today.
As ongoing education, I started teaching 1:1 in a district with incredible PD over the SAMR Model, Google software, and more. I gained both tomorrow-ready teaching tips and dynamic mental models to organize them. Sadly, many teachers receiver neither.
Many districts went 1:1 with little to no PD. Others went 1:1 without investing in the necessary digital infrastructure such as LMSs. If a district had PD just once, regular turnover erodes those gains overnight. Each problem weaves into culture with expensive devices and inept users. (While I have no numbers here, interactions at teaching conferences seem to suggest as much.)
Here's a truism: Education matters. So English teachers teach English, Math teachers teach Math, Science teachers teach Science, and so on. This begs the question: Who teachers computers?
3. Computer literacy itself exists in a no-man's land, used by all but taught by none. This isn't quite a tragedy of the commons—used by all, owned by none—but in a roundabout way it fits. Everyone uses computers, but few have the explicit obligation to teach them. Teaching about computers therefore operates outside the expected academic standards. This matters.
Imagine forcing a game but forbidding the rules. You evaluate the players and coaches, but when the coaches explain the game to the players, it violates unspoken rules. This isn’t so hypothetical: I’ve been formally reprimanded as a teacher here.
Early in my career, my freshman routinely sent hateful emails. Midway during the semester, realizing they didn't understand basic norms, we spent two days learning about digital citizenship and writing professional emails. The result? Their emails improved overnight. In a district which openly preached digital citizenship, this fit.
However, two weeks later, I faced an email of my own: A formal reprimand. You see, teaching emails was a "business standard" and furthermore professional emails wouldn't help my freshman on "the test." Nevermind that my freshman didn't even have a standardized test in Indiana in 2015. This resulted in an hour long meeting with an administrator about acceptable teaching topics. (I later left that district.)
You know, heaven forbid an inquiry email or job application or cover letter require something other than a five paragraph essay. Ya got me!
Towards a summary: Limited functionality prevents teaching computer literacy with Chromebooks. Many teachers themselves lack computer literacy and therefore cannot teach it. But if they can, teaching computer literacy by definition operates outside subject bounds. So teach it at your own risk. Oh, and computers are required.
IV. Ugly Sweaters and The New Kahoot
Imagine opening a Christmas gift from your grandma, only to find the ugliest sweater known to man. And I don't mean ugly in the ironic or trendy sense. This sweater is demonstrably and measurably ugly. Wearing it means wearing ridicule itself.
Protests go no nowhere. Your parents not only force you to wear it around grandma, but they demand a show for how much you love it. Why? Not feelings, but money. By Jove, she spent money on that hideous sweater.
Bad ideas work that way in schools: You use something because someone else bought it. And it doesn't matter if the sweaters are ugly, too small, or missing an arm: You use something because somebody else bought it. And these purchases ignore free but fundamental things. (You can teach about operating systems without spending a penny, for instance.)
Let's be clear: Despite research that computers are addicting and screen-based reading comprehension is shallow, I'm not anti-Chromebook. My workshop "How to Teach with Student Writing" relies on leveraging LMSs to collect student work. Educational technology helps construct archives of student writing which I study and transform into student-generated materials. My entire teaching style thrives on ed tech.
That said, I grumble when schools force fads over foundational skills, shiny things to sure things.
Sure things include slow-moving software like Microsoft Office or the Google Suite. Productivity begins with the type of information—words, cells, or slides. This software often evolves at a glacial pace and rightfully so. Jump in a time machine and word processors still resemble word processors, spreadsheets still resemble spreadsheets, and so on.
Shiny things include short-lived software which suffers from Mayfly lifespans, inevitable acquisitions, and abrupt paywalls. Just search defunct educational software in the past decade or so. This isn’t just a digital graveyard or obituary, but fads which wasted countless hours in professional development, learning curves, and time spent finding replacement software.
Let’s take Kahoot. Kahoot started in 2013, my first year of teaching. For the next six years, across two districts, I sat through PD after PD about Kahoot. When Kahoot erected a paywall in 2019, my district pivoted instantly. The next PD included a nauseating presentation over “the new Kahoot.” Joy. (This PD also included a normie-friendly PowerPoint over making memes, but I don’t want to relive that bucket of puke.)
Over the past decade I've watched so many services come and go that I rarely adopt new ones. I'll experiment, but more than not, the gimmicks and learning curves rob classroom time from helping students develop content area skills. (Kids may love Kahoot, but it won’t repair gaps in phonemic awareness.) As an early adopter and insufferable techie, I've become a contradiction: I love shiny things but use them sparingly.
Shiny software comes with price tags and expiration dates. Districts highlight new programs in newsletters and press releases, yet new software initiatives often ignore—or worse yet, create—shaky foundations. Shiny things mean subtraction. There's nothing flashy about teaching file types, nothing sexy about naming schemes, and nothing vogue about basic keyboard shortcuts. So we ignore them.
And so in 2025 teachers post instructions instead of links and blindly lead their students through gimmick after gimmick. They post scanned attachments instead of PDF’s, and every corporation sees someone hit Reply All instead of Reply. Meanwhile students can’t read, can’t write, can’t type, and can’t navigate simple user interfaces. But hey! Did you know AI can save you time?
Interlude: The 2023 ICILS Test
If the 2018 ICILS revealed low proficiencies, the 2023 test revealed even lower proficiencies. According to Education Week, “The average computer and information literacy score for U.S. students in 2023 was 482—a 37-point decline from 2018.” For reference, the international average was 476 and the highest proficiencies start at 661.
The US wasn’t alone, though. According to Education Week, scores fell in Denmark, Finland, and Germany as well.
According to NCES Commissioner Peggy G. Carr, "The results highlight the need for further inquiry and concentrated efforts to address the computer and informational literacy skills of our students—these skills are as fundamental as the 3 R’s [reading, writing, and arithmetic].” If they’re “as fundamental” (emphasis mine), you may as well expect a class for them, right?
Not a chance.
The report highlights an ongoing theme. According to the report, “These are skills that likely require explicit teaching rather than passive exposure to technology in order to develop productively in most students.” Despite “exposure,” computers require “explicit teaching.”
The next sentence in the Education Week analysis details the push by states for computer literacy with 18 states having signed legislation. Just don’t stop to consider the millions of high school graduates who received computers without computer education. That might make you question the state of today’s work force.
As we march towards the 2027 test, I’m going to offer a prediction: Scores will not improve any time soon.
Preview: Interfaces Require Instruction / The Missing Desktop Metaphor
Tools require teaching. This applies to scissors, hammers, doorknobs, light switches, and dashboards on cars. Oh! And spoons. This summer I’ve watched my one year old make tremendous progress feeding himself, but it’s taken months.
I have no study to quote here, no numbers to cite, but if we counted our “literacies” towards everyday objects, it would be staggering. As I type, my toddler zooms across the living room on his balance bike. So take the act of typing on a word processor: How many literacies would that require? (Whatever number you get, schools aren’t teachin’ ‘em.)
Let’s take a minute and muse about interfaces.
Keyboards once served as user interface to typewriters. Typing required teaching. When keyboards connected to computers, typing became the prerequisite interface to DOS-based Command Line Interfaces (CLI). Text-based computing meant memorizing commands.
When Graphical User Interfaces (GUI) took over, even the mouse needed tutorials. Movement replaced memorizing commands. For fun, see Douglas Englebert's landmark 1968 Mother of All Demos or the Window's 1995 Video Guide with Jennifer Aniston and Matthew Perry.
Software likewise requires instruction. Just try Photoshop for the first time: The icons read like hieroglyphics. Surely you've sat inside a rental at an airport, baffled by an unfamiliar dashboard. In the same way, software requires instruction. We forget that even “intuitive” interfaces require prior knowledge and mental models.
What prior knowledge, you ask? The digital world required translation. It required metaphor. The desktop metaphor digitized the analogue office world with, well, the desktop, folders, files, attachments, and so on. If your childhood meant writing letters by hand, the digital world became a physical extension.
Which begs the question: What if your childhood wasn’t physical? And what if digital childhoods rob students of the experience necessary to understand computers?
Until then, check out other pieces about technology:
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