Selber explains that functional literacy is when students are users of technology and they use computers as tools. The purpose of becoming literate is for a student to be skilled enough to acquire employment. However, he criticizes the vast approaches because they are overly simplistic an harmful. The main purpose of these approaches is to help people economically and that ignore power, and culture. Even though functional literacy allows access to a culture it can be brought forth in a better way so that its not made exclusively for one goal.
There seems to be a misconception of the word “functional” as being remedial. However, functional doesn't just refer to basic skills on a rudimentary forum of knowledge, it refers to approach of well rounded knowledge in various areas. Its difficult to change the semantic meaning of a word so perhaps changing the terminology will help. Furthermore, making a basic computer class a lower level requirement will just bring forth complaints so I suggest making a basic computer class part of a capstone. Although there might certainly be backlash at this type of initiative, it would still be a valuable class that would insure that many students will not fall back in the perpetual technological revolution. Students should leave college with basic computer skills that will allow them to function in various potential employment arenas.
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