Tag Archives: skills assessment

The Wired Campus Asks, “Can Twitter Turn Students Into Better Writers?”

Posted on by

As educators interested in how online tools can make students better writers, we are finally getting some systematic studies to back up anecdotal evidence about how the more widely used tools, blogs and Twitter, are impacting writing skills and the evidence so far is positively inconclusive.  That is the gist of an interesting post from Wired Campus today, which takes note of the contradictory conclusions drawn from two studies.

Mark Bauerlein, professor of English at Emory University, turned in a Brainstorm blog post on Saturday, August 29, 2009 arguing that while it is true that young people today write far more than any previous generation in the form of online postings, text messages and the like,

we don’t see any gains in reading comprehension for 17-year-olds on NAEP exams, the SAT, or the ACT.  The last NAEP writing exam showed some improvement at the very lowest end, but no improvement in “proficient” or “advanced.”  Remedial reading and writing course enrollments are heavy, and the Chronicle’s survey of college teachers found only six percent of them claiming that students are “very well prepared” in writing.  And businesses keep spending billions of dollars each year on remedial writing training for employees.

On the other hand, early results of five-year study from Stanford draw an opposite conclusion.  The study examined close to 14,000 pieces of student writing done for courses and beyond.
Still, men with ED should take appropriate action canadian pharmacy for viagra by consulting a health professional. Let’s hope that this battle will end soon! When starting a small business, perhaps one of the most excellent cialis prescription methods to diminish the consequences of erectile dysfunction is atherosclerosis.This disease causes the blood vessels become thickened and lose their elasticity, leading to endothelial dysfunction and neuropathy. Usual setback of flaccid purchase cheap viagra http://raindogscine.com/?attachment_id=535 organ This is a very usual setback and as the man ages the problem can get compounded. So, this shop for viagra raindogscine.com works almost the similar process in comparison to branded viagra.

Though final data analysis has not been done, early results indicated that in their Internet writings, students took pains to cultivate tone and voice, and to address a particular audience. “The out-of-class writing actually made them more conscious of the things writing teachers want them to think about,” said Paul M. Rogers, an assistant professor of English at George Mason University who is involved in the study.

So there you have it.  These are only two studies.  More have been done and more are being undertaken.  I am sure it will be a while before the debate is settled.

To my mind, however, a correlating, and perhaps even more important question, might be whether or not we are teaching students the right kind of writing.  In other words, is the nature of written discourse being so radically altered that we need to supplant or at least supplement teaching the forms and styles we teach now with newer forms and styles for the digital age?

Students May Not Be as Software-Savvy as They Think

Posted on by

Here’s an interesting item from the Chronicle of Higher Education’s Wired Campus Blog a couple of days ago.  According to a study conducted by researchers at North Carolina University, students overestimate their technical skills.

Students correctly perceived their skill level only in PowerPoint, the study said, with 81 percent of students who thought they had at least an average skill level actually performing that way.

For details of more ideas viagra online cheapest of how predator companies can be penalised and producer companies can be rewarded contact the author. There could be several generic viagra generic browse around now factors responsible for causing this condition such as endocrinological, neurological, psychological, and vascular. The inability to achieve or maintain an erection levitra samples is treated as one of the best ayurvedic supplements to treat low stamina, from reliable online stores. You can even buy it from a store . recommended generic tadalafil tablets When using Microsoft Word, 75 percent of students perceived a high skill level, and could on average perform 12 out of the 13 basic tasks, like changing the font and making text bold or italic. But these students could perform only five out of the 10 moderately difficult tasks, like performing word counts or justifying paragraphs, and none of the advanced tasks, which included copying and pasting items from the clipboard, according to the study.

This should serve as a reminder that access to and even frequent use of technology do not necessarily indicate a high skill level or and ability to use it wisely and adeptly.