Is Chatspeak Destroying English?

I do think that chatspeak is destroying English. I mean sure it useful to get the point across over a text message, but it creates laziness. I think that this chatspeak is going to carry over into students writing and in any school work. I think it can be useful to text "u" instead of spelling out the word "you". However I'm still convinced that its more damaging then efficient. I just really feel that this chatspeak should not be practiced and students should be practicing the correct way to write in every form of expression. All this slang doesn't translate well for essay test scores.

Linda Howard, whom I agree with that chatspeak is useless. She says, "The shortcuts of chatspeak are a welcome convenience when keying data into the cell phone or online chat rooms, but they have no place in the larger society, where effective writing skills are a must." Writing skills are suffering because of this chatspeak. I think we need to take Linda Howard's comments and eliminate this chatspeak as best as we can. On the other hand, Greg Monfils, thinks that, "The kids want to see if they can get away with it and, perhaps, help to make a change in something so dryly traditional as spelling." He thinks spelling doesn't matter and that we should let students use chatspeak in their assignments and essays. I highly disagree with this man. I think we need to teach spelling just as rigorously as we did before computers.

In conclusion, my only question was how we can eliminate chatspeak entirely? Another question that arose was, how can we teach writing English if students are practicing it in their own lives? These questions I cannot answer, maybe a peer of mine can answer these questions when they comment on my post. Thanks for reading my blog post and lets get rid of chatspeak once and for all!

Cyberbullying

Cyberbullying is bullying through technology. Whether it is through text messages, phone calls, or mainly through the internet cyberbullying is a very occurring activity. When I was in middle school I remember being on aol instant messenger. I can vaguely remember myself liking a girl who went to our school. I decide to talk to her so I used instant messenger and had a conversation with her. Well, when it was over I thought it went well and the next few days people kept coming up to me and teasing me about liking her. I was humiliated, what she had done was post our conversation in a chat room with over 20 of our peers. She made me feel terrible. I always remembered that cyberbullying experience. It was a very humiliating time for me. I was shy around girls for the rest of middle school, luckily I grew out of that.

The obvious problem that schools face is cyberbullying becoming more prevalent than regular bullying; when children don’t like each other, rather than confronting one another face to face, students are taking it to the internet. The major problem schools are facing is that this bullying is taking place off of school grounds. Therefore they authority over this cyberbullying isn’t as effective as if the bullying was taking place at school. There have been many court cases about this issue and as long as the cyberbullying doesn’t put anyone in danger than any action by the school is considered infringement of the 1st amendment. Schools want to deal with this problem by regulating it, but there is no such thing as internet police. Cyberbullying is a very difficult thing to stop. The only way to know if students are cyberbullied is by the victim opening up to their parents or to school. Other than that there is no way to tell. It’s a very difficult thing to track. Lastly, I think schools should regulate this behavior. I think it’s the students and parent’s right that the school be the internet police when these actions occur. I also think that the government should pass new laws to enforce these cyberbullies.

The way I would deal with cyberbullying in my class would first be to address it as just as serious as on school grounds bullying. I would make it very clear that if I found out about any of my student’s cyberbullying each other than I would make a quick call to their parents and also have the cyberbully write an apology to the victim. In the first week of school I will preemptively address this problem. If it comes up again throughout the school year I will make sure that the students know there will be consequences. No student in my class will get away with that type of poor behavior. When I discuss cyberbullying in the first week of the school year I will address the whole group. If cyberbullying happens in my class it will be dealt with between individuals. I don’t want any shame to come out of the punishments or disciplinary actions. Parents will be notified as well as administrators.

In conclusion, cyberbullying is a very dangerous and hard to catch behavior. We need to stop it before it happens and if it happens to have strict rules forbidding it. I think cyberbullying can lead to death, like it did for that 13 year old girl we read about in the article. We must as a school come together and address this problem and try to police it as best we can. Even if the laws don’t necessarily permit us to be the authority on the manner we should anyway. Let’s stop cyberbullying!

A few websites I found when I was googling my name are located below.

http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/w/i/n/Brian-D-Wine/WEBSITE-0001/UHP-0405.html

This link above talks about this guy named Allen Michael Belzberg Bell. It talks about his family and gives some information about him in a link. This website discusses this man in a family tree maker online. Its a family tree website where this guy and his family are located.

http://www.newsmeat.com/campaign_contributions_to_politicians/donor_list.php?candidate_id=S6NV00028&cycle=2010&li=B

At this website, my name is mentioned, but there are hundreds of other names mentioned as well. The site discuss who supported Harry Reid in the 2010 senate race. One note is that my name isn't really located on here as one of the supporters, but my first name and my last name are so that is why this website popped up when I googled my name.

On the Pipl website, there was nothing that popped up when I was searching. However, one of my relatives came up. I was surprised at how much information you could find at this website, if you pay, then you can get very personal information. This sounds very concerning to me.

There was nothing that I would changed on the Internet about me. I have a facebook profile, but there isn't anything that is questionable on it. However, there are pictures of me with drinks at parties. Although I'm of age (23) they still could be considered questionable moral behavior. I might want to delete those pictures, but unless my boss tells me too. I won't worry about changing anything on facebook. If I was under 21 then I would really want to delete those pictures. If you read my blog, let me know if you think I should delete those pictures or not?

I do think that teachers should be held to a higher standard when it comes to morality. Teachers should be role models, thus they should act and behave professionally in and out of the classroom. A teacher who cannot behave correctly should not be in a field where children look up to them. Teachers as well as parents instill morals, values, and ideas. All teachers should be accountable in and outside of the classroom. But where the line is drawn is a very subjective definition. Is it OK for teachers to go out and get wasted on a Saturday night? I think it is as long as they don't break the law. Others would disagree with me. I do think it would be immoral to drive when your intoxicated, but some of our civil rights as citizens of this country tell us that if we don't break the law then we aren't doing anything wrong. With all that said, teachers are held to a higher standard and I think it is important to follow what the district tells us is acceptable behavior, if we want to keep our jobs.

Teachers speech should be held against them in a very light way. If a teacher has ideas about administration and about how other teachers are teaching then I think we have the 1st amendment right to discuss how we feel about those. On the other side though, the administration and other teachers might feel offended and want to see you get fired. Its a narrow line that teachers have to walk, what can we say, what we cannot say. As long as we are always accountable and have logic behind what we say then we should be fine.

"As we have become firmly rooted in the technology tools of the 21st century social networking has evolved to be an integral part of our reality." This fact in the article was the most real. I found this fact more than the others to really demonstrate how our students are going to think. They are going to be social networking and bouncing around the Internet. I think this is something we need to know and be aware of as teachers. This means that we need to be aware that students will look us up on the social networking websites and see any questionable comments or pictures that are there. Again, the high level of moral standards will have to be present in all aspects of our life, even our Internet social profiles.

I will definitely try to protect myself as best that I can. I will constantly be googling my name every few weeks to see what pops up. I don't want to miss a job opportunity just because there is a quote in my facebook profile that says I like to party. I will make sure that all that stuff is private and therefore I will be able to protect myself. This is a very important aspect for teachers to consider. We have to moral in and out of the classroom. Finally, this means that in cyberspace we have to be moral as well.

Digital Natives

Digital Natives are what the students are now. A digital native is a person who speaks a language of technology just as well as they speak English. Today, the students are more familiar with computers and television then they are with books. This has it's pro's and con's, but what the Marc Prensky is suggesting is that we need to start teaching to the Digital Natives. This means that we should have computer games instead of pencil and paper assignments. There is some good things about this idea as well as some negative. "Our students have changed radically. Today's students are no longer the people are educational system was designed to teach" (Article). I consider myself a digital native, since I grew up with computers basically my whole life.

"Our students today are all "Native speakers" of the digital language of computers, video games, and the internet" (Article). One pro to teaching to Digital Natives in their own language is that we are reaching them. Basically, we are meeting them where they are at in their real lives. A best practice of teaching is to always relate students real lives with what they are learning in class. If we teach them via computers then we are accomplishing this.

One negative aspect to teaching at the digital level is students will not be as great at spelling due to spell checkers and other basic skills we learn without technology. Another example is calculators. Of course without calculators students have to come up with mathematical answers on their own.

Some of the pros outweigh the cons in my opinion, but you could just as easily argue the other way. I think the critical theme is that we need to meet the students where they are at in their lives. By meeting them in their digital age we are doing exactly what we should. Lets go to the students level, which is through computers.

Our Methodology needs to change, but I think the content is still relevant. "Digital immigrants assume that learners are the same as they have always benn" (Article). These articles haev changed my mind a little bit. I thought previously that I would incorporate a reasonable amount of technology, but after reading these articles I would want to incorporate a lot more technology. We need to still teach students the core subjects, but the way we do it needs to change. If we don't teach them social studies then they will miss out on understanding geography, history, psychology. However, we could teach them through computer games instead of through textbooks. I'm all for this kind of a change, but lets leave the subjects that are already in use, stay.

The language that is of the old education system smells like textbooks and paper and pencil assessment. We need to change to a digital language and to do this we need to incorporate cell phones, computers, television, and any new technology. In my childhood I used technology to play games. When I went through high school we used a lot of technology. Lots of computer use. In college there was even more technology. I was using technology a lot and by the time I strated grad school I used even more. There is definitely a trend. Again we need to relate the material to what the students are living in. Meaning, they don't spend as much time reading books as they do playing on their computers. As Bob Dylan sang, "Times are changing" we need to keep up with these changing times. Technology most likely will imporve the learning of our students, it improved my learning when I went through school. I think we just have to utilize it correctly.

In conclusion, I think changing the way we do things will benefit the digital natives. Also, lets change our methodology, but keep the subjects were using. The cons are prevalent, but I don't think they outweigh the pro's. Essentially, lets meet the students where they are at in their lives. Lets, as teachers, go to the students level, which is where the reality is more digital then it used to be.

introduction

My name is Michael Belzberg. I'm hoping to teach social studies to high school students. My favorite animal is a dog. Specifically, my favorite kind is a Boxer. I like dogs because these dogs are man's best friend and these certain dogs are great for playing with, cuddling with, and hiking with.