Literacy and Work in the Digital World

Annette Vee, associate professor and director of Pitt’s Composition Program in the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences’ Department of English, works to develop awareness of the technology we engage. Her 2017 book, “Coding Literacy: How Computer Code Is Changing Writing,” is a basic text in digital humanities and computer science education.

“It is crucial to have general education about our roles as humans in an increasingly digitized world,” she says. “It is literacy for citizenship so we can make informed decisions. We need to engage and be aware of how the technology works.

“AI raises an existential question:  What is the point of writing? Do we need the same kind of writing for all spaces? In history, writing has always been central to bureaucracy. A lot of it is rote, not learning, not thinking,” Vee says. “It is important for any writer to engage and know how to use the tools, from entry-level people to senior leaders, to be able to tailor AI for templated writing.”

 

This story was originally published in Pitt Research.