It does hinge upon definition and then the spin of the interpretation.

The example I always give to my students about how statistics can be manipulated is as follows: A company notices that 40% of all sick days are taken on a Monday or Friday, so they assume that staff aren’t sick, they’re taking advantage of sick time to have a long weekend. They clamp down on sick time and start harassing their employees, only to discover later that if sick days were randomly taken all five days of the week, that would be 20% each day. Any two days added together would be 40%. Statistics can be very tricky. Especially for folks like me who have never taken a statistics course.

Also, I would like to think we could still consider technologically literate to require some understanding of code. Especially with the focus on Web 2.0, we are at a time when more than ever students are able to “go to the code” (just right click and ‘view source code’), and yet current tech standards say almost nothing about programming ability.

I tend to agree with Guido van Rossum, creator of the Python programming language:

“…while many people nowadays use a computer, few of them are computer programmers. Non-programmers aren’t really “empowered” in how they can use their computer: they are confined to using applications in ways that “programmers” have determined for them.”

http://www.python.org/doc/essays/cp4e.html

It seems to me that there is no other way (besides teaching the fundamentals of programming) that students will ever be able to reach the standard you quoted:

“VI. Technology Operations and Concepts

Students demonstrate a sound understanding of technology concepts, systems and operations. Students:

A. understand and use technology systems.

B. select and use applications effectively and productively.

C. troubleshoot systems and applications. ”

I can’t see students reaching those three standards without knowing how programs are made.

All the fooferaw about “data” these days makes me thing we’ve forgotten that.