[blowski]

Personally, I think that any computer education (well any education generally) is worthwhile, but universal concepts with practical application are the most important.

There are certain concepts that all advanced users of computers know, but about which there is a damaging lack of understanding amongst beginners.

As an example, a basic understanding of HTTP (not necessarily calling it that) would save people lots of money on their phone bill. I know plenty of people who see "1GB download limit" on their mobile contract and think that's fine "because they never download on their phone". When you explain that downloading includes refreshing their Facebook app, checking football scores, etc, they don't understand. Nor do they understand why they always go over the download limit.

So knowing what it means when you say 'download' is a universal benefit. If you're using a computer of some description in the 21st century, downloading something will be unavoidable.

Conversely, you can get by on a computer without ever using Excel or any kind of spreadsheet application. So while it would be tremendously useful to a very large number of people, it's not a fundamental in the same way as knowing the difference between a file and an application.