I’m interested in a trend observed by myself and colleagues at the CCI where some digital skills that are assumed prerequisites for our courses are now unfamiliar to a large fraction of incoming students. Examples of these include:
- finding files in folders
- extracting files from an archive
- installing software
This trend has been observed more broadly across computing education. Despite increased accessibility of digital technology, digital literacy has decreased in school-age students over the past decade (IEA, 2025). In particular, the skills listed above rely on a mental model of the computer as a nested system of files, which for many users has been superceded by a search-and-apps model (Chin, 2021). This difference poses a challenge to students and lecturers, as the filesystem model is still a core aspect of how computers operate, and important for learning programming.
Preparation
Last year, I developed a series of interdisciplinary workshops for incoming students, aimed at developing these skills before they enter the CCI. These were modelled after Carpentries workshops in content and philosophy, framing the material around practical tasks that students might encounter in an arts context (Wilson, 2019), such as image editing and web design. I took inspiration from Melanie Hoff’s class Folder Poetry, which uses poetic metaphors to teach filesystem structure, and her insistence that users of computers are ‘always already programming’ (Hoff, 2018). The learning outcomes were refined via an informal poll of colleagues, of “essential computer skills that your courses presume that are often not possessed by students”.
The workshops were piloted with existing students in Spring 2025. Feedback from the pilot (gathered through forms after each workshop) was positive, though a minority reported that they had found the pace too fast. Given attendees had two terms of experience, and as volunteers were likely to be more engaged, this indicated that the workshops needed to be simplified, to move “at the pace of the slowest learner” (Wilson 2019).
Reflection
After teaching the workshops last Autumn, I would further alter some aspects, as most attendees did not report completing the tasks. I believe this was either an issue of engagement, or the teaching environment: in each workshop there were four current students available for questions, but they were under-utilised by attendees.
One approach would be to further break tasks down into smaller interactive elements, rather than as components of longer creative tasks. Having the tasks be more independent of one another could reduce the chances of attendees getting lost. An area that I would also like develop was the post-workshop student feedback, which I didn’t formally gather, and would have been helpful to better understand how effective the workshops were.
As an additional next step, I am planning to establish a Technical Teaching Working Group in the department, providing a peer lens (Brookfield, 2014) on the development of foundational technical skills. This will provide an avenue for staff to discuss how to adapt teaching material to accommodate differences, and an opportunity for myself and other technicians to learn how to further support lecturing staff.
References:
Chin, M. (2021) ‘File Not Found: A generation that grew up with Google is forcing professors to rethink their lesson plans’, The Verge, 22 September. Available at: https://www.theverge.com/22684730/students-file-folder-directory-structure-education-gen-z (Accessed: 28 January 2026).
Hoff, M. (2018) Peer-to-Peer-Folder-Poetry. (online) GitHub. Available at: https://github.com/melaniehoff/Peer-to-Peer-Folder-Poetry/blob/master/two-day-workshop.md (Accessed 11 Feb. 2026)
International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) (2025) An international perspective on digital literacy: results from ICILS 2023. Cham: Springer. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-87722-3.
Wilson, G. (2019) Teaching Tech Together: How to create and deliver lessons that work and build a teaching community around them. Taylor & Francis. ISBN: 978-0-367-35328-5