Computer Literacy/Contributing

This page is for people interested in fixing/improving/adding content in this wikibook. If you just want to read the book, go to the main page. General information about the book can be found in the foreword.

Definition

This book aims to teach (or to be used to teach) computer literacy. Computer literacy is the ability to fully utilize capabilities of computers.

Choices

The following choices define the book:

• This book is aimed at very young children, because they are the ones first approaching computers these days. It can be also used by older children and adults for self-study, but it is expected to be mostly used by parents and teachers to guide very young children.
• Due to the focus on young children, the style is very lightweight, mostly in the spirit of "ma, look what the computer can do!". There's nearly no theory. Text mostly consists of instructions to follow and ideas to try. Pictures are plentiful. There are no drills or tests.
• This book focuses on desktop and only lightly covers tablets/phones. See Foreword § Why desktop computers?.
• Linux is the main OS used. Other operating systems are covered as an extra. See Foreword § Why Linux?.
• There is no separate "Internet literacy". Online tools are described side-by-side with desktop applications, because Internet is widely available and online applications have the same feel as desktop applications. The trend is to move applications online.
• Advanced concepts like "digital literacy" (skills and ethics of creating and communicating online) are constrained to the end of the book, because they would bore and confuse young children.

Excluded content

The following topics are out of scope for this book:

• Large apps (Gimp, Blender, even Libre Office) have their own guides. We will only cover basics to demonstrate possibilities.
• Programming is taught to small children these days, but it has lots of dedicated Wikibooks. It's better to just link to them.
• Touch typing is an essential core skill, but there are specialized websites and apps for it. This book is not a good place to teach or even to introduce touch typing.

Competing wikibooks

There are a number of wikibooks that cover (parts of) computer literacy. They are listed below along with differences from this wikibook:

• Computers for Beginners - This is an abandoned book. The main issue is that it was written for adults rather than children. Titles (Computers for Beginners vs. Computer Literacy) nicely capture this different focus on adults or children, so both books should be probably kept with their respective focus. There are other issues besides adult-oriented style, including rather old-fashioned focus on Windows and some unrelated topics like buying hardware.
• Teaching Computer Literacy - This is an abandoned/unfinished book. Parts of it might be later merged into this book, but many parts of it are inappropriate here. It is more of a reference information than guide. It takes the old-fashioned route of Windows and MS Paint. It contains misplaced accessibility hints. Some of this unrelated information might be merged into Computers for Beginners though.
• Basic Computing Using Windows - An odd collection of Windows-specific topics. It should be probably merged with Computers for Beginners.
• Non-nerd's Guide to Computers - This is a strange assortment of articles. Content should be merged into several other books.
• FHSST Computer Literacy - This is an abandoned book. The little content that is there should be probably merged into other wikibooks.
• Easy Guide to the Internet - This is incomplete, outdated, and abandoned. The little content that is there should be either deleted as outdated or merged into this book.
• Linux Guide - This is a rather outdated adult-oriented introduction to Linux. It could be seen as a Linux version of Computers for Beginners.
• Wikiversity's Computer Skills - Pretty comprehensive, but it's not a Wikibook and it looks targeted at adults.

Related wikibooks

• How To Assemble A Desktop PC - A high-quality book covering topics that are out of scope for this book. This book should link to it.
• Computer Hardware - A bit outdated book, but it can be improved. It is heavily focused on internals, so it's not appropriate as a replacement for hardware content in this book. But it could be linked as an extra resource.
• Blender 3D: Noob to Pro - This can be linked as an extra in case this book covers (briefly) basics of 3D modelling.
• Introduction to Information Literacy in the K12 Classroom - This is more advanced and more abstract than computer literacy. It might be a good complementary resource.
• FOSS Education - Covers wider use of Linux in education, teaching IT with FOSS in particular. It provides justification for Linux use that could be linked from this book.
• Internet Technologies - This is incomplete, outdated, and abandoned, but it could theoretically be a nice guide to the Internet/web protocol stack. It's too technical to reference here.

Templates

The following templates are used in this book:

• {{BookCat}} - Added to the bottom of every chapter.
• {{Nav}} - Added at the top of every chapter.
• {{Chapter link|Chapter name|optional display text}} - Used for internal links in the book.
• {{todo|missing content info}} - For maintenance TODOs.
• {{Choice|Choice of ...|explanation}} - Used to explain choices made in the book and mention alternatives.
• {{Setup|Setup ...|setup instructions}} - Show setup instructions for parents/teachers or older students.

Conventions

The following stylistic conventions are used in this book:

• Chapter titles have the first letter of the first word capitalized. Only book title has the first letter of every word capitalized.
• Instructions are shown as a numbered list. Mere lists are shown as bulleted lists.