Computing and ICT Literacy: From Students' Misconceptions and Mental Schemes to the Monitoring of the Teaching-Learning Process

Three main questions guided the author in the writing of the chapter: Is there the need for a widespread and in-depth ICT literacy in mankind? What has to be meant for ICT literacy? And are there special problems in students’ learning of ICT topics? And last but not least: How can ICTs themselves improve teachers’ work and students’ learning on ICTs? The introduction answers the first question and shows how difficult the search can be for solutions to the problem of the digital divide. The answer to the second question comes from a short survey of the experiences that some institutions made for the introduction of basic computing skills and PICT literacy in school curricula. In the meantime the problems that the students usually meet while attending computer programming and ICT literacy courses are described. Finally the author reports the results of some experiences involving the use of ICTs in teaching and describes how he arrived to hypothesize the adoption of action research strategies, of Web technologies and data mining techniques for the monitoring of the teaching-learning process and its improvement.