From Technological Literacy to the Philosophy of Technology and Technological Citizenship: A Progress Report

摘要

In the last paper I presented in this division of ASEE (Neeley, 2006), I complained that it was distressing to see a group with such an ambitious and worthwhile project saddled with a name that provided so little insight into its character and potential. The opening sections of Technically Speaking: Why All Americans Need to Know More about Technology (2002), a joint publication of the National Research Council and the National Academy of Engineering, make it clear that the initiative called "technological literacy" is concerned with a sophisticated and heterogeneous combination of "knowledge, ways of thinking, and capabilities" and focused on ambitious goals: "To take full advantage of the benefits and to recognize, address, and even avoid some of the pitfalls of technology. .. [to help citizens] become better stewards of technological change" (p. 2). Then, as now, "technological literacy" is the most widely recognized way of describing the project(s) in which this division is engaged. In my 2006 paper, I argued that we needed to rename the enterprise, mainly because "literacy" implied remediation rather than the aspiration to create something that had never existed before: a well-informed citizenry with the knowledge, motivation, and confidence to engage in purposeful deliberation about technology.