I want to relate an interesting story my brother told me the other day about one fascinating — and negative — way Apple is affecting children in the classroom. My brother is a grade school teacher, and recently he’s noticed an alarming trend in his students’ grammar, specifically capitalization. It started a few years ago. My brother would review a sentence one of his students wrote, and it would read, “i went on a walk with my mom.” He’d see this lowercase I and would mention to the student that he forgot to capitalize it. These lowercase I’s would show up occasionally, but my brother always assumed it was just a case of forgetfulness on the student’s part.
Thank your teachers: test-takers remember more
October 15th, 2010 · Just for Fun
We expect that the majority of those reading this piece are all too familiar with the tests and quizzes that fill the academic landscape. Although most view these as at best a necessary evil—people need some way of tracking academic progress—it turns out that they actually play a useful pedagogical function: an array of studies show that people who have undergone testing perform significantly better than those who simply attempted to study but werent quizzed on the results.
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Gamers make accurate decisions faster than non-gamers, new study finds — Engadget
September 18th, 2010 · Just for Fun
Many studies have shown some evidence that spending a lot of time playing video games can mean, for instance, that a person will perform worse in school — probably because theyre too busy playing The Sims to study. Recently, however, some newer studies have begun to show some more complicated evidence. A new study published in Current Biology, for instance, discusses players of standard action games, and how doing so augments their decision making abilities.
via Gamers make accurate decisions faster than non-gamers, new study finds — Engadget.
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Can New ‘Apostrophe Song’ Cure The Apostrophe Crisis? (VIDEO)
September 7th, 2010 · Grammar, Just for Fun
Can New “Apostrophe Song” Cure The Apostrophe Crisis?
via Can New ‘Apostrophe Song’ Cure The Apostrophe Crisis? (VIDEO).
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In defense of the Happy Days – Jump the Shark
September 7th, 2010 · Just for Fun, Literary Terms
“What was the precise moment you knew it was downhill for your favorite show?” One said it was when Vicki came on board “The Love Boat.” Another thought it was when the Great Gazoo appeared on “The Flintstones.” Sean Connolly offered, “Thats easy: It was when Fonzie jumped the shark.” As Hein later recounted, there was silence in the room: “No explanation necessary, the phrase said it all.”Thus was born an expression that would quickly make its way into the pop culture mainstream, defined by Hein as “a moment. A defining moment when you know from now on … its all downhill … it will never be the same.” If I had been in the room, however, I would have broken that silence of self-assuredness, for I wrote that now infamous episode of “Happy Days.”
via First Person: In defense of the Happy Days Jump the Shark episode – latimes.com.
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Students trust high Google search rankings too much
July 28th, 2010 · Writing
As seasoned Internet veterans know, just because a site shows up high on Google’s search rankings doesn’t mean it’s the most credible source on a topic. That little bit of wisdom has apparently not made it all the way down to the current generation of college students, however, according to a paper published in the International Journal of Communication. According to the research out of Northwestern University, students barely care about who or what is showing up when they click on that top link—a behavior that undoubtedly affects their quality of research when doing schoolwork.
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Text Messaging Stunts Writing Skills
April 13th, 2010 · Grammar, Language
In a recent report, Irelands Department Of Education expressed concern that text messaging is beating the smarts out of its students heads. The report, which observed 37,000 students aged 15 and 16, states that, “Text messaging, with its use of phonetic spelling and little or no punctuation, seems to pose a threat to traditional conventions in writing.” The report not only blames textings shorthand vocabulary for poor spelling, it also hints at a larger problem: that children trained to write at a rapid-fire pace are failing to think analytically about test answers. They instead answer quickly, with little thinking and few words.
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Expert says txt is gr8 4 language
February 24th, 2010 · Grammar
A linguistics expert has rejected claims that texting by mobile phone is bad for language and literacy skills.
Professor David Crystal argues that such condensed messages enhance and enrich language skills.
via BBC NEWS | UK | Wales | North West Wales | Expert says txt is gr8 4 language.
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Phone texting helping students to spell?
February 24th, 2010 · Grammar
Children who regularly use the abbreviated language of text messages are actually improving their ability to spell correctly, research suggests.A study of eight- to 12-year-olds found that rather than damaging reading and writing, “text speak” is associated with strong literacy skills.
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Sorry, English major, the engineers have triumphed
February 19th, 2010 · Literature
In 2008, Nicholas Carr took to the pages of The Atlantic to make the provocative case that Google might be “making us stupid.” His basic worry was that a reliance on the Web was rewiring his brain, that he was skimming along the surface of links, facts, and ideas, but now had trouble engaging in more focused thought and in reading longer pieces of text.
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