I loved having pen pals. Getting letters in the mail was as exciting to me as a trip to the amusement park. Kinda nerdy but the truth. I thought having a pen pal was wicked fun, but I see now that the point of it from a teacher's standpoint was for us to practice our cursive and written communication skills.
But kids today don't need to learn cursive or how to write a page long letter to a friend in a far off place. No -- not when you've got TECHNOLOGY on your side? Why sit down to craft a nice letter on aqua paper when you've got email and facebook?
Heck! Second graders in Orono are learning how to use Twitter! Why write out a whole long letter, fix your spelling mistakes, address it, put a stamp on it, and walk it alllllll the way out to a mailbox when you can let someone else know what you're up to in just 140 little characters?Debbie White of Asa Adams School in Orono thinks Twittering from one class to the next is cool. And so do her kids, apparently. I mean, why spend all that time forming multiple sentences when just one will do?
Debbie White said she decided to bring the micro-blogging site to her classroom to help her pupils learn writing skills by composing messages, known as Tweets. - from Boston.comI mean really! Kids these days are learning writing skills via Twitter? What can you possibly learn from writing one sentence about what your class is doing? Is this really teaching our kids writing skills?
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2 comments:
This reminds me of the day when children were learning math skills on a calculator. Oh no! Would this mean that they would not be able "figure it out in their head? or have to do long division on paper? Well, yes it does! How much more convenient for our checkbook/debit card balancing, tax forms, budgeting, etc. to have a handy-dandy calculator. Yet the thought of minimizing the way to figure out the answer and get the job done seemed shameful for educators to teach to our children.
Isn't twittering, texting, blogging, email and face book just to name a few doing the same thing in writing terms? Taking shortcuts and communicating in more immediate terms to minimize our busy day activities? Yes, those pretty hand written notes from pen pals around the world are memorable and I know that Mimi has kept most of them, but think how many more correspondence pieces you get today from friends - almost by the minute, I think.
I think the bigger picture here is that children need to be taught the basic educational skills needed in writing, math, science, etc. to build a foundation for a successful and productive career. If that has happened, there is ample opportunity for them to explore learning in a variety of ways.
I feel like people need to have the rules down and the tools in place before they learn how to text and twitter. I literally got a handwritten note from a college student that had a smiley face written sideways like a colon and a parentheses :) like they were texting me. I've had papers passed in with texting lingo in them. This is how the communicate, sure, but they also need to know how to put a sentence together, write a thesis statement, and argue (on paper) convincingly.
I'm all for new technology -- I just think having a class blog where more than two sentences are written at a time would be a better learning tool...
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