IM isn't destroying our language

We teachers who sit around the lunch room lamenting the language skills of our students and blaming email and instant messaging all have to take a step back after reading this article, Researchers: written English language will weather LOL storm and will need to find something new to blame.

"Everybody thinks kids are ruining their language by using instant messaging, but these teens' messaging shows them expressing themselves flexibly through all registers," Tagliamonte said in 2006 after completing the research for the paper. "They actually show an extremely lucid command of the language. We shouldn't worry."

Perhaps we can now blame teachers. Naw....how about parents. No, I like parents. I know, the government. If all else fails, blame the government!

Posting a students picture on the web

When I came to my current school district about ten years ago, it was against the rules to post a picture of any student online unless you got written permission from a parent. Needless to say, we had lots of school web pages with few pictures of any actual students. I spent a lot of time blurring out the faces of any students I posted on my class site.

My classroom was different. If a child did anything remotely interesting a picture was taken, usually with the responsible students standing proudly beside their creation. The students then opened it into a publishing program and added dates and names. It was printed out and hung on the wall. Kids loved seeing their projects and pictures of themselves posted. It was a great motivator. (Plus every child was comfortable manipulating digital photos and creating simple desktop publishing documents.)

My district has since become a bit more liberal in their internet policies. If I were running a tech lab now, I think I'd post class related pictures weekly. If not on a school website, than on a classroom blog. Kids could prepare their web page or photos for posting. They could share their work with friends and parents without dragging them into the tech lab. I'm going to be teaching a beginning multimedia class for ninth graders next year and I am already starting to think how I will be displaying their work online.

This all leads me to today's link. Brad Moon writes on GeekDad about seeing his elementary age daughter's project posted on YouTube. I thought it was interesting to read a parent's perspective. Don't forget to read the comments from other parents.

[Image: Al Gunn personal collection, "tower competition"]