Technology

After reading the article, Is Chatspeak Destroying English, I have to say that I agree and disagree with both sides. The yes side feels that if younger students write in chatspeak all the time, that it will greatly hinder their normal, everyday speech and writing skills. According to Linda Howard, a supporter of the issue, “When students are thoroughly immersed in the culture of instant messaging, meaningful written expression may be hindered because their mindset is that of the shared culture of other students, and the common language is chatspeak, not traditional English.” What she is meaning is that students text so much, that they have become fully immersed in this “new” language which only offers them bad habits when speaking or writing correct English. She also believes that because they are starting this behavior at younger and younger ages, it will be more difficult for them to distinguish “between acceptable and unacceptable dialogue.” She goes on to say that in high school and college, students will need to have the ability to speak and write properly and she feels that “Students may very well become so familiar and comfortable with chatspeak that it will be difficult to switch gears and construct adequate, meaningful academic papers and other assignments.”

The ‘No” side is taken by a man named Greg Monfils. He believes that chatspeak is not destroying English and is nothing more than learning another language which schools promote. He says that he has students who email him all the time using chatspeak and then write very well done papers with proper English. He feels that the students know the difference. He states, “I strongly suspect, based on my experience at a laptop school where
kids communicate with each other and with their teachers in chatspeak, that their subversion of standardized
English has no appreciable effect on their command of written English. They code switch. Nor do I believe that their command of written English would increase appreciably if they would only forego chatspeak and strive to exhibit a command of written English at all times.” He feels that these kids actually have a better awareness of English through chatspeak because they are able to modify it for chatspeak and then change it back. He agrees that chatspeak can get extremely annoying and aggravating, especially for and English teacher, but he does say that the message of what they want to ask him does come across. He also feels that if chatspeak is seeping into written in English it’s due more in part to “rebelliousness as opposed to obliviousness.” He does not agree with substituting numbers for words or letters but he actually doesn’t quite understand why we don’t use different spellings for words. “Why shouldn’t “you” be spelled “u”? We don’t spell “I” “aye” or “eye,” do we? We could also agree to spell “eye” “I.” If you agree, you might say, “I I.” And I know no reason why we don’t spell “know” “no.” Indeed, Word wouldn’t let me spell “know” as “no” in the third word of the last sentence.”

Both of the people make convincing arguments. It is hard for me to decide on who I agree with. I also use chatspeak and I do find it difficult, at least when I first start writing, to transition from chatspeak into written English, but I do always return and write very well. However, I did not start texting until a few years ago. I was not immersed in the “new” language since I was young. I definitely feel that would have a stronger effect than starting when you’re older.

cyberbullyingO

Originally, harrassment in schools was seemed that boys will be boys and girls will be girls. This viewpoint changed when situations and outcomes worsened. The schools became involved and stepped in when harrassment began to take place. There were consequences for anyone who engaged in any top of hazing or bullying. The schools set up policies that directly addressed student to student harrassment and listed appropriate punishments. Now the schools had a legal duty to take care of harrassment issues.

Today,traditional bullying still exists, but now there is a new culprit, the computer and this has become the new way of harrassing peers by students. Cyberbullying is any kind of taunting over the internet that is done to create damage to a person, their character or their computer system. The biggest problem with cyberbullying is the ability for the perpetrator to remain unknown and the ability to send the comments to the masses. This creates chaos at school and even more people getting involved in the bullying and rumors even in the face to face contact.

The schools are having difficulty with this issue because most of it takes place off of school grounds and they only have the authority to stop the "speech" part of it. Schools don't just want to punish the offenders but also stop the problem, make the parents aware of what's going on. Thus schools want to give educational presentations on the dangers of cyberbullying to show kids what it can do to their peers.

Google my name

After googleing my name, I found several things out. Number one, is that there are other people, around my age, with the same name. This is odd because I have never known anyone with my same name. One of the girls seems like a great person who has volunteered and written papers about her experiences, while the other is more "flirtatious." Luckily, the more flirtatious one looks nothing like and so there will be no mistaking the two of us. I found myself on various websites including:
- http://www.spokesman.com/letters/writers/14674/
- http://www.modelmayhem.com
-http://www.ewu.edu/x50430.xml
-http://www.spokesmanreview.com/news/live/body.asp?ID=library%5Cgrad01%5Cgrads-ferris
-http://www.soccerbuzz.com/recruits/2001recruitsa.htm
-http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4191/is_20010208/ai_n9982960/
-http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1314&dat=20021019&id=Y7cyAAAAIBAJ&sjid=i_IDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6724,6873921
-http://lovelyhotties.tumblr.com/post/765416024/muscularbabes-rachel-lassman
-http://ww.modelmayhem.com/portfolio/555642/0

What I found was that a lot of the sites had to do with soccer. It kind of brought me back to my old soccer career days and made me think about how my life would have been different if I had only stayed with my original plan and stayed at Colorado College. It turns out that my head coach there, ended up being the head coach of the Women's National Team which means I would have had an aawesome opportunity to get to that level. But that's how the world works and you learn and move on from your mistakes as best you can.

The other thing I realized I came up for a lot was modeling pictures. I used to model quite a bit, long before I ever wanted to be a teacher. Unfortunately what I didn't know is that some of my pictures got stolen and put onto sites I didn't even know about. I would say for school purposes, some of the pictures might be deemed inappropriate...they are tasteful thought, not slutty. I was also a part of hometown hotties for Maxim magazine which is probably frowned upon. Unfortunately, I don't know how to get rid of those pictures.

I do feel that as teachers we have a status to uphold for sure. However, we all had lives before we got into teaching where we all experimented and had fun and have the pictures to prove it. It is a slippery slope when dealing with this because I feel that as teacher's we may be held to higher standards than other people. I'm not sure what the correct answer is. I would like everyone's thoughts. My parents think I should delete all my modeling sites which I can see their point for sure, but it's also something I like to do..... would love feedback, thanks.

Digital Reflection Assignment

The article Digital Natives was extremely interesting and a little intimidating. The reason I feel it is intimidating is because I think I fianlly realized that I am definately going to have to incorporate technology into my lesson. That scares me a little bit because I am definately not a Digital Native but rather a Digital Immigrant who is not particularily savvy with technology. According to the article, "Our students have changed rapidly. Today's students are no longer the people our educational system was designed to teach." This is a very important statement because it only reaffirms that we have to change our educational system to accomodate the Digital Natives. As stated by the artile, "If Digital Immigrant educators really want to teach Digital Natives - i.e. all their students - they will have to change." Before reading this article, I felt that I could possibly get by with out incorporating a lot of technology and doing things the "old way." However, after reading the article I have realized this will never work. Growing up with technology has actually wired the student's brains differently then older generation's brains were wired. We were taught with a slower methodology whereas today's youth are taught a lightening fast pace with instant gratifiaction. The article states, "They [students] function best when networked. They thrive on instant gratification and frequent rewards. They prefer games to "serious work." "They've been networked most or all of their lives. They have little patience for lectures, step-by-step logic and "tell-test" instruction." This is important to know for any teacher. this means you will constantly have to be changing your teaching style within one lesson in order to keep students engaged and on task. Otherwise, they will get bored and disinterested. We, as teachers, must also incorporate projects into our lessons that involve using technology which the students will be familiar with. It will be very important in our teaching careers to accept help from our students and remain flexible and creative.

Introduction

Rachel Lassman. Biology High School. Elephant