Digital competency (Lankshear & Knobel, 2008) and digital literacy (Glister, 1997; Lankshear & Knobel, 2008) have been among the most popular expressions in the curricula of recent years, and the effect of both on different generations – the Y and Z generations of the digital natives (the bit-generations) and the X generation of digital immigrants (Dani, 2013; Jukes, McCain & Crockett, 2010) – is one of society's main concerns. We will give some consideration to these newly emerged expressions and some background information related to them. First of all, the most important point is to emphasize that in order to develop digital competency effectively and efficiently and to achieve a satisfactory level in digital literacy, formal education is needed. For formal education, teachers are needed. For teachers, teacher education is needed. At this point the loop is closed, and we are facing the chicken and the egg problem: who teaches the teachers if there are no teachers? In Computer Sciences/Informatics Education (CSI) this is one of the most crucial questions and for an answer we have to look back in time to the emergence of the subject. The contradictions, both of the science itself, and of the developing commercialized world as it interacted with the science, affect teachers, teacher education and consequently the development of digital competency and literacy.
Recent studies have proved that more than 90% of the e-documents carry errors, and uneducated computer users cause serious financial losses by providing unreliable data and by using up much more time than problems require (Panko & Aurigemma, 2010; van Deursen & van Dijk, 2012), while other publications have provided evidence that these mistakes are due to a lack of algorithmic skills and thinking (Biró & Csernoch, 2013a, 2013b). However, the Students On Line session of the PISA 2009 survey proved that computer usage in schools does not necessarily increase the level of digital competence (OECD, 2011). This ambiguity clearly indicates that we have serious problems with the methods employed to teach CSI.
The problems of CSI education emerge from the particularities and the contradictions of the science: (1) a new science without any direct predecessors, (2) a science developing at a speed previously unknown in any other science, (3) the commercialized word developing around the science, and (4) the pressures and the needs for computer usage and for information.
The pioneer teachers were self-educated, in most cases not supervised, and if so, certainly not by experts in the didactics of the subject, because they did not exist. These first teachers taught mainly programming languages, algorithms, binary arithmetic, and computer architecture. Over time they became accepted, whether they were qualified or not; they used methods they developed themselves, without proving their efficiency and effectiveness, due to a lack of time and methods.
In the meantime computer science developed at an incredible speed, and the new graphical user interfaces (GUI) using the mouse increased the number of users and changed the approach and attitude towards computers. Everyone started to use computers regardless of any background knowledge, and software developers encouraged them to do so. These companies claimed that by using the GUI and its accompanying wizards the users would be able to solve problems. Users need do nothing else but click here and there and they will find the solution.
Even teachers fell for this, and, giving up the teaching of algorithms, switched to aimless clicking, not looking for the algorithms in these new programs; consequently they stopped developing their own and the students’ algorithmic skills.