Purcell, K., Buchanan, J., & Friedrich, L. (2013, July
16). The Impact of Digital Tools on Student Writing and How Writing is Taught
in Schools. Pew Research Centers Internet American Life Project RSS.
Retrieved June 25, 2014, from
http://www.pewinternet.org/2013/07/16/the-impact-of-digital-tools-on-student-writing-and-how-writing-is-taught-in-schools/
I was looking through the report and found many interesting
results that I could agree with. Then I came across the following information on the “type of community you
teach” and saw that 50 of the 100 teachers surveyed come from a small city or
suburb. I thought to myself can this be true for a large metropolitan city like Houston. Just think about it, the student to teacher ratio, poverty levels, internet
access to name a few would be off by thousands when factored into the equation. Wouldn't that make the results inconclusive? Let’s take a look at the results anyway because I do
agree with the majority of its findings.
When asked, teens considered writing something they only did in school; they didn't believe that texting, tweeting, blogs, or any social medias was remotely close. I can agree with this because my students were shocked when I chose to use text conversations as a real world connection to dialog.
Not until I did this did they realize it was a form of informal writing. To change it to a formal piece I could then show them how to tweak it using grammar and spelling rules to clean it up.
Today’s digital technology allows students to “share their work with a wider and more varied audience” (52%
strongly agree, 44% agree) with the use of the internet reaching around the globe. This
is not a surprise as new online communities and social networks are developed
to keep us connected to each other. 78%
believe this leads teens to think deeply about what others have to say and leading them to respond with their own personal expression.
I don’t know about thinking deeper because they do seem to have no filters on the internet. You know no netiquette, they blurt out
stuff that can be impertinent, rude, obnoxious, and even mean just to name a
few things. Oh! Wait a minute. That’s right they are just teens and this study covers AP students so I
will give them the benefit of the doubt.
68% say that digital tools make students more likely to take
shortcuts and not put effort into their writing. I think this mainly pertains to research and
not daily writing or creative writing. This is believable because I've seen it with my own eyes, students cutting and pasting information directly into their own papers with no thought of what I just taught them on “fair use” and “copyright”.
I’m with the majority that say, 40% of today’s digital
technologies make students more likely to “use poor spelling and grammar”. Of
course I believe this, especially when you get papers filled with 4ever, 2, LOL, OMG and
so on. I can understand using it in narratives and dialogue to add voice but it’s
useless in expository and formal writing.
So, is this still true for all students, the impact of
digital tools on their writing? Maybe but it would still be nice to see a comparison between
the different communities and if there is any change in results. I would even go so far
as to study affluent vs. poor districts, just for curiosities sake. Digital
tools can help teens with their writing but beware the “creep” of informal
language.
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