Measuring Literacy in a World Gone Digital

Interesting article* by Tom Zeller Jr. from the January 17 New York Times. Apparently ETS is about to start administering a test at selected colleges to try to measure information and technological literacy. The article has a quote from our friend Stanley Wilder, who is predictably skeptical.

Excerpt:
"The Information and Communications Technology literacy assessment, which will be introduced at about two dozen colleges and universities later this month, is intended to measure students' ability to manage exercises like sorting e-mail messages or manipulating tables and charts, and to assess how well they organize and interpret information from many sources and in myriad forms. About 10,000 undergraduates at schools from the University of California, Los Angeles to Bronx Community College are expected to take the test during the first offering period, which ends March 31."

I'll definitely be interested in seeing the results!

*Registration required for NYT or available in FT in Lexis-Nexis Academic.