Wikipedia Quiz

Digital Media Comic

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Changing Language... Is Digital Language Harmful to Proper English?

In the article "Are Digital Media Changing Language", author Naomi S. Baron discusses the possibility that digital media is not the death of English, and is not having as significant an impact as one might think.
Take the following quote from the article for example:

• For example, in a study I did of college students' instant messaging conversation, out of 11,718 words, only 31 were "online lingo" abbreviations, and only 90 were acronyms (of which 76 were LOL). In a study of college students' text messaging, my colleague Rich Ling and I found a few more lexical shortenings; yet the grand total of clear abbreviations was only 47 out of 1,473 words, which is hardly overwhelming.

These numbers shocked me. While there is a host of digital acronyms and lingo terms available for use, in instant messaging and even texting, few were used.

I am not sure if these numbers are an accurate portrayal however, of overall digital language use.

Why? Because this survey was of college students.

Considering that I graduated high school in 2006 and did not own a computer or cell phone until college, polling me as a college student would in turn produce texts and instant messages with  low usage of digital language norms.

However, if you were to poll my 12 yr old niece who has owned a smart phone since the age of 8, you would find such usage of digital language to be much more prevalent.

The younger generations are growing up with this language as a part of everyday life whereas older persons have not.

For many of us, digital communication still has that 'new car smell'.

Let's consider the following quote:

• "Whatever the benefits of digital media, it is destroying the ability of young people to construct the basic unit of the English language... the sentence."

I agree to a point with this quote, that digital media lingo is threatening to the formal reading and writing processes of the English language.

 In this video, an English teacher shows just how much 'trouble' texting lingo has caused his students to have.
However, the girl at the end who texts constantly, is a published author and points out that the key to success in the 21st century is being fluent in both (formal language and digital).

While digital media does have many benefits and does encourage creativity and intellect, I think having a good understanding of how formal language interacts is still necessary to overall cognitive learning.

To me, learning how to balance both is the true test of linguistic ability.

The Future of Work Video Response

In the video The Future Of Work,  I found myself having a strong reaction to many of the proposed ideas and facts presented. Here are 3 of the things that really stuck me:

1. 10 years ago, social networking did not exist. 10 years before that, the web did not exist.

• It is interesting to me that social networking is such a huge part of most people's daily life and yet it has only been around for a short period of time. Employers are using this as a means of checking out potential employees, businesses are using it as a main source of advertising, and individuals are being tracked to see what their interests are and provide information better suited to them. It is hard to believe that with the amount of time, money, and resources poured into Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc, that they are relatively new.

2. CrowdSourcing- to split a task into smaller pieces and unleash it to millions of people around the world.

• I was shocked to learn that the secondary purpose of Captcha is to identify words a computer cannot when digitally converting published texts. I knew that the primary purpose was to verify a human was using whatever web service the Captcha phrase might be attached to, but I had no idea there was more to it than that. 

3. In 2006 28 million Americans worked in a virtual team at least one day per month.

• It is hard to believe that 28 million people participated in some kind of virtual team associated with the workplace, and on a monthly basis. That was 7 years ago...by now the number has surely skyrocketed. In the future it is easy to see how the "workplace" is likely not to be a "place" at all. While there will always be certain vocations that require a physical presence, it is staggering to think of how many do or will not in coming years.

I feel that my K-12 experiences have not done a lot to prepare me for the future of work in this new digital age. Then again, I did graduate high school 7 years ago. My college experiences however, have helped keep me more up to date on ways to use digital media and communication effectively in the workplace. 

In the field of education, technology is going to continue to play a crucial role in the way students learn and communicate. And I feel learning and adapting to these technologies in the classroom (or perhaps virtual classrooms, even) should take precedence, in order to reflect the changing face of the job market and better prepare students to be able to enter the workforce as competent individuals.

Poll Everywhere Computer Response

Click here to take a poll about science interests!

Poll Everywhere

Who I Am

• Hello! My name is Alicen Patton. I am 24 years old, originally from Alum Creek, WV. 
• I am an Education Major at Fairmont State University, specializing in General Science and Physics Education. 
• I am also a Certified Nuclear Medicine Technologist, and my experience in that field has led me to want to share my passion for science with others. 
• When I was a student in high school, I hated all of my science classes. 
• It was only after getting to college that I began to develop an appreciation that led to a love of science, especially physics, which I like to call 'the science of how stuff works'. 
• I wish to be able to ignite that type of interest in students at an earlier age through many hands-on activities, as well as other methods of learning (visual, auditory, etc) so that information is constantly being presented in new ways to stimulate students' minds. 
• I intend to get students involved as much as possible so that we can make science in the classroom as interesting as science is outside the classroom!

Minute Physics: An excellent You Tube Site filled with short snippets of physics topics in a fun, easy to understand format. There are also links available at the bottom of this site.

My Favorite Educational Video

"As we say having somebody do it for themselves is worth being told about it a thousand times. So what you want to do is arrange science education so that students have hands on experiences." -Bill Nye