Should teachers worry about how texting may affect a student’s writing skills?
I’m not sure which might worry English teachers more: accepted use of poor grammar and abbreviations used in texts, or a predictive text program, such as T9 mentioned above, that automatically completes the spelling of a word. Yet most of the English teachers with whom I spoke don’t see a cause for alarm. Just as teachers preach the dangers of relying on spell check, we must now make sure students recognize the difference between a message and a well-constructed paragraph. Anecdotally, I notice that my students seem to be much more adept at capturing tone in electronic communication than adults, even if it is sometimes accomplished through the use of emoticons.
I’m not sure which might worry English teachers more: accepted use of poor grammar and abbreviations used in texts, or a predictive text program, such as T9 mentioned above, that automatically completes the spelling of a word. Yet most of the English teachers with whom I spoke don’t see a cause for alarm. Just as teachers preach the dangers of relying on spell check, we must now make sure students recognize the difference between a message and a well-constructed paragraph. Anecdotally, I notice that my students seem to be much more adept at capturing tone in electronic communication than adults, even if it is sometimes accomplished through the use of emoticons. :-/ Should teachers worry about how texting may affect a student’s character? As an educator, one of my concerns is that texting makes it easier for students to engage in nefarious activities. I have heard of instances where students use text messages to set up meetings for drug usage, etc. While this is certainly not the norm,
