ABSTRACT
The increasing presence of personal computers in homes, workplaces, communities, and schools has brought about dramatic changes in the ways people across the world create and respond to information. In the United States, for example, the ability to read, compose, and communicate in computer environments-called variously technological, digital, or electronic literacy1-
has acquired immense importance not only as a basic job skill,2 but also, every bit as significant, as an essential component of literate activity.3 Today, if U.S. students cannot write to the screen-if they cannot design, author, analyze, and interpret material on the Web and in other digital environments-they will have difficulty functioning effectively as literate human beings in a growing number of social spheres. Today, the ability to write well-and to write well with computers and within digital environments-plays an enormous role in determining whether students can participate and succeed in the life of school, work, and community. Despite their growing importance, however, we really know very little about how and why people have acquired and developed, or failed to acquire and develop, the literacies of technology during the past 25 years or so. Nor do we know how historical, cultural, economic, political, or ideological factors have affected, or been affected by, peoples’ acquisition and development of these technological literacies.4
