"Given the newness of these types of technologies, it is only in the last few years that educators have started to notice them and explore their effects on student behavior and performance. While there is supporting evidence to suggest that these technologies have a large influence on the social development of adolescents, an even more pertinent issue for classroom teachers is what effects these technologies have on the academic development of young people. In this article, I examine how students' use of text messaging technology, specifically IM, affects their writing skills. How does IM use affect students' interest in traditional writing (as learned in school)? In what ways does IM usage affect students' writing ability? How does "IM-speak" change students' views of what is considered "proper" language? How can classroom teachers build on student use of this increasingly popular technology? In this paper I provide a discussion of the current issues and current teacher practices surrounding instant messaging as it relates to student writing."

This bookmark is about how hidden curriculum is a skill that everyone must learn on there own. It cant be taught it has to be observed and learned that way. "Richard Lavoie described the hidden curriculum as important social skills that everyone knows but no one is taught. This includes assumed rules, adult or student expectations, idioms, and metaphors. Understanding the hidden curriculum is difficult for everyone, but it is especially so when compounded with a deficit in social interactions."

"The global digital divide is a special case of the digital divide, the focus is set on the fact that "Internet has developed unevenly throughout the world" [7] causing some countries to fall behind in technology, education, labor, democracy, and tourism. The concept of the digital divide was originally popularized in regard to the disparity in Internet access between rural and urban areas of the United States of America; the global digital divide mirrors this disparity on an international scale."

The language barrier can present problems in interactions when different languages are being used in business. "Blunders like these can be costly. And as burgeoning markets in Asia increase in importance, new insight is required to break through what you could call a language barrier. As a result of the globalization of business through mergers and international investment, English has become a lingua franca. Almost two billion people worldwide speak it, and more than half of these learned it as a second language. Moreover, global popular culture is dominated by English-language television, music, film, print and social media."

"But some language combinations work much better than others and even when the translation's good, it's never perfect. "Google Translate is good at helping you get what is called a gestation or essentially the essence of what the other person is communicating," says Goolgle's Michael Galvez. I'm skeptical that "gestations" will be enough. Much of what we read on the web is written beautifully or full of nuance and software will never be able to translate that. So some translation projects, like a new website called Meedan.net, are still using good ol' humans. "The idea is a Wikipedia-style approach to translation," says Meedan founder Ed Bice. Meedan uses a mix of human and machine translation to present articles, blog posts, and comments about the Middle East in hopes of bridging the gap between the Arabic and English-speaking worlds. The comments following an article like this one show how the presentation of the translated text will also be an important issue to tackle. Google Translate essentially wipes out the foreign language, showing you web pages only in your language. Meedan instead has the English and Arabic side-by-side. This layout is a valuable addition to the translations themselves when it allows you to see comments bouncing back and forth between languages."

Emoticons are used to make the point more clear if you are joking or being serious. "Avoiding Misunderstandings Emoticons can also be utilized to avoid misunderstandings. A joke sent over the internet may be construed as a serious statement by the receiver, which can lead to negative consequences in interpersonal relationships. A serious statement may be interpreted sarcastically, hindering accurate communication between individuals. Including an emoticon with the message helps indicate the sender's original intent and avoid a misunderstanding. For example, sending a :) emoticon with your joke helps the receiver understand that you were joking, not being serious."

When talking back and forth via email, or instant messages one must be careful not to cross any lines that would make anyone misunderstand what was meant. "Diverse opinions are critical to constructive dialog. Diversity enriches a group. But there is a line between constructive critical thinking and behavior which demeans individuals and potentially destroys communities. It is a fine line with no obvious answer for a facilitator. The goal of this piece is to think about how to support diverse and divergent thinking while reducing the likelihood of personal conflict and group destruction. And this conflict often arises due to misunderstanding. So it is about conflict beteen people, not between ideas. This is an important distinction! Before we discuss how to avoid online conflict, there are five key attributes of online communication to take into consideration: Lack of physical communication cues - We cannot see or hear the huge range of non-verbal cues we use during the course of conversation to discern if our audience is understanding, agreeing, disagreeing, getting uncomfortable or opening up. In cyberspace, we must explicitly ask for this information. Potential impersonality of the medium (distance) - Sometimes, when communicating online people may lose some of their inhibitions and say things they would not say offline. Social norms are less clear and more open to individual interpretation. Setting norms that we agree to use together can control this loss of inhibition. Asynchronicity affects the way we experience and feel about messages - When you have time to think about your response, you may be more thoughtful or you may let issues build up and get blown out of proportion. In online interactions, each of us may interpret periods of silence very differently. These subtle, unspoken issues can cloud communication. Public vs. private spaces and perceptions - People have different tolerances of what they think should be "public" or "private." T

People sometimes read into emails and other things like instant messaging. This can lead to major conflicts and the loss of friends. "People treat e-mail like face-to-face communication. We're used to saying things out loud and having our intentions, mood and demeanor correctly interpreted by the person we're speaking with. But when you strip away facial cues, social context, tone of voice and other information, people can easily misunderstand."

"The etiquette guidelines that govern behavior when communicating on the Internet have become known as netiquette. Netiquette covers not only rules of behavior during discussions but also guidelines that reflect the unique electronic nature of the medium. Netiquette usually is enforced by fellow users who are quick to point out infractions of netiquette rules."