20221005223010

The Abc of
Digital Literacy

Víctor Fancelli Capdevila

vfcapdevila@hfg-karlsruhe.de

About this course

  • Goals
  • Pedagogical approach
  • How we work

Me

  • Digital Archivist @ Open Resource Center
  • I gave curses on “convivial technology” and digital tools
  • In theory I am student
  • Fan of GNU/Linux and Free Software (more on that, later)
  • Interested in HumanS interaction with technology
  • Believer of the capacities of this university and their students

Goals of this course

  • Present the digital infrastructure of the HfG to the participants
  • Enable students to use tools and create digital content
  • Capacitate sharing and interacting online
  • Safety and wellbeing online

(sounds a little bit boring…)

MY Goals of the curse

  • Enable you to understand digitality and (all possible) digital tools
  • Awake your critical capacity on deciding which tools you want to use
  • Empower you to confront digital related problems
  • Make you aware of the importance documentation
  • Share this knowledge with everyone
  • Have fun

Pedagogical approach

> From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs

Pedagogical approach

> From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs

  • That explains the pool: I need information about your necessities
  • We can discuss whatever program/topic you like: just Ask for it!

Pedagogical approach

> From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs

> Crash course, kung fu approach, completely free

  • Spark sessions, DIY (at your rhythm), during the whole semester
  • Kung-fu approach: it is you who learn. I will give you some input and some feedback, and help if you need it, but YOU have to ask for it!

Pedagogical approach

> From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs

> Crash course, kung fu approach, completely free

> No exams, no attendance obligation, no certificates: only your pure interest

But we may have badges in moodle!

How we work

  • In every session I will give some input and together we will take a "user journey".
  • There may be some assignments (few, normally installing software on your computer): they allow focusing on other more interesting things in the class. They are NOT mandatory
  • I am available to solve doubts: after the class. If not, you can write me an Email
  • This workshop is connected to a project to create a web with all information we will assemble. Every contribution is welcome!

Questions?

Dataflows

markdown, git

eduroam

Digital literacy & digital competence

  • Something to learn (content)
  • Skills
  • Framework

Digital

information codified to be read, processed or outputted by a computer

  • Everything can be transformed into digital information: input (sensor)
  • Computers can process data
  • Computer can output data (which can control a motor)

Cybernetics

From Input → BlackBox → Output to Feedback

Cybernetics: Environment

  • Data is never blowing in the wind, but needs materiality (your computer, a server, electricity, etc.)
  • Even more, data has no agency (but humans+data have)
  • Computers are systems of systems = Environments

You may think: Program = Code

but a program is part of an environment:

  • it works with other programs (dependencies, interoperability, integration)
  • is maintained / updated / developed by someone
  • should have a License
  • it needs a manual or a documentation
  • it needs testers
  • it needs translators

There’s too much information

What matters is the flow of information
(Infrastructure > Conjuncture):

  • Dataflow
  • Workflow

pipelines and having the information in the proper format

Automatization and digitality

How to do things with nothing?

  • Magic (?)
  • Delegating to someone else (power, conviction, exchange)
  • Delegating to analogue automatization
  • Digital automatization

The case of a book

For author1 author2 author3 and editor, text = Fließtext (continuous text)

For designer, text = ({title}+{author}+{headers}+{text}+{images})

They’re working with two different information

  • Data: the text itself
  • “Metadata”: (in this case) Which function does it have? Which aspect should it have?

HTML does it, but …

  • It’s hard to read and edit for humans
  • Can be really complex, and at the end of the day, people use less than 10 possibilities

Word does it, but …

  • Mixes the processes as if they were one
  • It’s terrible at exporting things
  • Try to do everything, but it’s not really got on everything
  • It’s proprietary software
  • It’s WYSIWYG

Markdown

It’s not WYSIWYG:
first the text, then the aspect (or at the same time, but in the other window)

Why should you learn Markdown?

  • Because you already know it
  • Because it’s almost everywhere (interoperable)
  • Documentation is almost always in Markdown
  • Almost no risk of lock-in
  • MD Files are smaller, faster (and searchable!)

Markdown in action

Markdown (cheat sheet)

  • # Heading
  • _italics_, **bold**
  • [Links] (to something) and images with !
  • Lists (1. ordered, - unordered)
  • table | | and - [x] task
  • code and

    blockquote

That’s it!

Eduroam

The university Wi-Fi

eduroam (education roaming) is the secure, world-wide roaming access service developed for the international research and education community.

eduroam allows students, researchers and staff from participating institutions to obtain Internet connectivity across campus and when visiting other participating institutions by simply opening their laptop. 

  <p>According to <a href="https://eduroam.org/what-is-eduroam/">eduroam.org</a></p>
  • faster than freifunk
  • available in (almost all) universities of the world
  • it may have some firewall advantages

How do we get it?

→ Documentation at https://accounts.hfg-karlsruhe.de (login with Email password)

  • Format (copy and paste and edit) the documentation in Markdown
  • Translate (you can use DeepL/Googletranslate) into Markdown?
  • Do you have any idea on how could it be nicer? (you can use screenshots)

For people in videoconference (paste it in the chat) (Don’t make it perfect, just it’s just an exercise)

Well…

  1. You should have eduroam configured
  2. You know how to markdown
  3. That’s how user-documentation works

Now we have some user documentation… would it be awesome to publish it so that anyone can read it?

Git

Git is a distributed version control: tracking changes in any set of files, usually used for coordinating work among programmers collaboratively developing source code during software development.

Real time editor vs. Version control

Git

master / branch / commit / fork

Git allows:

  • clone
  • commit
  • push (upload)
  • pull (download)
  • merge

GitHub (an environment for git)

[it provides pipelines to develop the website, make a web from our MD-File; have an issue reporter]

The drawback: it’s Microsoft, but we can export and use it in other platforms

The Course project

Yes, it consists of making a documentation about the different things we will speak about, if possible in German and English (or any other language you want)