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amkodya

The Future of Reading - Literacy Debate - Online, R U Really Reading? - Series - NYTime... - 0 views

  • As teenagers’ scores on standardized reading tests have declined or stagnated, some argue that the hours spent prowling the Internet are the enemy of reading — diminishing literacy, wrecking attention spans and destroying a precious common culture that exists only through the reading of books.
  • At least since the invention of television, critics have warned that electronic media would destroy reading.
  • Some traditionalists warn that digital reading is the intellectual equivalent of empty calories. Often, they argue, writers on the Internet employ a cryptic argot that vexes teachers and parents. Zigzagging through a cornucopia of words, pictures, video and sounds, they say, distracts more than strengthens readers. And many youths spend most of their time on the Internet playing games or sending instant messages, activities that involve minimal reading at best.
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  • Last fall the National Endowment for the Arts issued a sobering report linking flat or declining national reading test scores among teenagers with the slump in the proportion of adolescents who said they read for fun.
  • According to Department of Education data cited in the report, just over a fifth of 17-year-olds said they read almost every day for fun in 2004, down from nearly a third in 1984. Nineteen percent of 17-year-olds said they never or hardly ever read for fun in 2004, up from 9 percent in 1984. (It was unclear whether they thought of what they did on the Internet as “reading.”)
  • “Whatever the benefits of newer electronic media,” Dana Gioia, the chairman of the N.E.A., wrote in the report’s introduction, “they provide no measurable substitute for the intellectual and personal development initiated and sustained by frequent reading.”
  • Critics of reading on the Internet say they see no evidence that increased Web activity improves reading achievement. “What we are losing in this country and presumably around the world is the sustained, focused, linear attention developed by reading,” said Mr. Gioia of the N.E.A. “I would believe people who tell me that the Internet develops reading if I did not see such a universal decline in reading ability and reading comprehension on virtually all tests.”
  • Reading skills are also valued by employers. A 2006 survey by the Conference Board, which conducts research for business leaders, found that nearly 90 percent of employers rated “reading comprehension” as “very important” for workers with bachelor’s degrees. Department of Education statistics also show that those who score higher on reading tests tend to earn higher incomes.
  • The simplest argument for why children should read in their leisure time is that it makes them better readers. According to federal statistics, students who say they read for fun once a day score significantly higher on reading tests than those who say they never do.
  • Neurological studies show that learning to read changes the brain’s circuitry. Scientists speculate that reading on the Internet may also affect the brain’s hard wiring in a way that is different from book reading.
  • Some scientists worry that the fractured experience typical of the Internet could rob developing readers of crucial skills. “Reading a book, and taking the time to ruminate and make inferences and engage the imaginational processing, is more cognitively enriching, without doubt, than the short little bits that you might get if you’re into the 30-second digital mode,” said Ken Pugh, a cognitive neuroscientist at Yale who has studied brain scans of children reading.
Robert Linsenbach

Is technology producing a decline in critical thinking and analysis? | UCLA - 0 views

  • "Studies show that reading develops imagination, induction, reflection and critical thinking, as well as vocabulary," Greenfield said. "Reading for pleasure is the key to developing these skills. Students today have more visual literacy and less print literacy. Many students do not read for pleasure and have not for decades."
  • Another study Greenfield analyzed found that college students who watched "CNN Headline News" with just the news anchor on screen and without the "news crawl" across the bottom of the screen remembered significantly more facts from the televised broadcast than those who watched it with the distraction of the crawling text and with additional stock market and weather information on the screen.   These and other studies show that multi-tasking "prevents people from getting a deeper understanding of information," Greenfield said.
  • Visual intelligence has been rising globally for 50 years, Greenfield said. In 1942, people's visual performance, as measured by a visual intelligence test known as Raven's Progressive Matrices, went steadily down with age and declined substantially from age 25 to 65. By 1992, there was a much less significant age-related disparity in visual intelligence, Greenfield said.   "In a 1992 study, visual IQ stayed almost flat from age 25 to 65," she said.   Greenfield believes much of this change is related to our increased use of technology, as well as other factors, including increased levels of formal education, improved nutrition, smaller families and increased societal complexity.
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  • As technology has played a bigger role in our lives, our skills in critical thinking and analysis have declined
  • Reading for pleasure, which has declined among young people in recent decades, enhances thinking and engages the imagination in a way that visual media such as video games and television do not, Greenfield said.
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    ""Studies show that reading develops imagination, induction, reflection and critical thinking, as well as vocabulary," Greenfield said. "Reading for pleasure is the key to developing these skills. Students today have more visual literacy and less print literacy. Many students do not read for pleasure and have not for decades.""
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    Studies show that reading develops imagination, induction, reflection and critical thinking, as well as vocabulary," Greenfield said. "Reading for pleasure is the key to developing these skills. Students today have more visual literacy and less print literacy. Many students do not read for pleasure and have not for decades." These and other studies show that multi-tasking "prevents people from getting a deeper understanding of information," Greenfield said.
Robert Linsenbach

Impact of the Internet on Critical Reading and Writing Skills - Reading Horizons - 0 views

  • the internet is making us all a little more A.D.D.
  • Experts describe this habit of darting from page to page as "associative" thinking. They have especially noticed this habit in younger children, whom are comparably less focused on studying, reading, and writing then the age group was when measured in the past. This is damaging to reading ability because it decreases our ability to comprehend what we read.
  • Another way researchers believe the internet has impacted our critical thinking abilities is that we now use less reliable sources to learn about new ideas. We often accept any article as fact. They found that students children’s reading abilities now do less research before answering a question. They also found that they trusted their friends for answers more than adults. They attributed this habit being a result of internet exposure, but it could simply be that children are more trusting and less skeptical.
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    Experts describe this habit of darting from page to page as "associative" thinking. They have especially noticed this habit in younger children, whom are comparably less focused on studying, reading, and writing then the age group was when measured in the past. This is damaging to reading ability because it decreases our ability to comprehend what we read.
amkodya

Destroying literacy | Life is what you make it - 0 views

  • Some social critics are of the opinion that the spread of the electronic media is destroying literacy. Standardized test scores of reading and writing ability have in fact gone down in recent years. Are the new media the main cause?
  • the number of hours spent watching television declines as the education levels of viewers rise, but education-related differences in the amount of television use are not large and they have been narrowing
    • amkodya
       
      TELEVISION
  • Volti notes that Marshall McLuhan was of the opinion that television affected viewers by requiring they use all their senses, that viewing television was not like reading, which is linear. Television is less concerned with sequence than reading.
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  • Studies have shown that television viewing may actually be detrimental to the perceptual development of children who are not already deficient in language ability and visual skills
  • It is my opinion that reading works the brain. I know that when I read, I can use my imagination, I can draw on information I already know, I can absorb new facts and ways of thinking about things. Volti says that reading fosters “imaginative continuations” that televised stories do not (242).
  • Finally, Volti states “There is also a fair amount of evidence that television watching may contribute to underdeveloped reading skills in children” (242).
amkodya

Adolescent Literacy: An Imperative | Raising Awareness and Finding Solutions for the Ad... - 0 views

  • are our schools meeting this demand? In short, no. Or at least, not well enough. As a country we have devoted many resources to early childhood education initiatives that teach children to read. But once students possess these basic skills, they must be taught to interpret the information they read, to think critically, to write clearly, and to communicate effectively. Unfortunately, middle and high school students are not meeting state and national standards for basic reading proficiency, let alone developing higher literacy skills. According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, only 38% of twelfth graders read at or above the proficient level.
  • Promoting adolescent literacy cannot be limited to reading and writing. To be highly literate in our culture involves mastering many different types of literacy- digital, financial, health, media, etc. If a student graduates high school able to read and write, but is unable to use a computer, we would consider their functional literacy limited. Yes, this is an oversimplification, but it serves to illustrate this point: literacy is defined and influenced by cultural and societal standards. And in a consumerist society such as ours, our jobs dictate many of those standards. These jobs demand digital literacy.
sharesta

Children who read on iPads or Kindles have weaker literacy skills, charity warns | Mail... - 1 views

  • Jonathan Douglas, the director of the National Literacy Trust, said: 'While we welcome the positive impact which technology has on bringing further reading opportunities to young people, it's crucial that reading in print is not cast aside.
vnarvaezfullsail

TV found to have negative impact on parent-child communication and early literacy compa... - 0 views

  • Since the first television screens lit up our living rooms scientists have been studying its affect on young children. Now scientists have compared mother-child communication while watching TV to reading books or playing with toys to reveal the impact on children's development. The results show that watching TV can lead to less interaction between parents and children, with a detrimental impact on literacy and language skills.
  • The team found that when reading a book with their children parents used a more active communication style, bringing the child into contact with words they may not hear in every day speech, thereby improving their vocabulary and grammatical knowledge. In contrast watching TV resulted in significantly fewer descriptions and positive responses than mothers playing with toys. "Reading books together increased the maternal communication beyond a level required for reading, while watching TV decreased maternal communication. This is significant when we consider the amount of time young children spend watching TV. In some cases children are left alone to watch TV, missing out on any parental communication at a critical stage in their development," concluded Nathanson.
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    Television Impact
vnarvaezfullsail

Television and Literacy - 0 views

  • There are other studies that support the theory that watching television does decrease literacy. In 1976, the National Assessment of Education Progress found that teenagers who watched three hours of television the night before an exam scored significantly lower than those who watched less than 60 minutes of television. (Hornik 195) The students who watched three hours of television scored a 59% compared to the 69% of the ones who only watched one hour. (Hornik 195) The number themselves are not striking; however, the similarities with the homework are more surprising. The same group of teenagers scored a 58.5% when they did not do homework and a 72% when they had done homework. This shows an interesting relationship between time spent watching television and time spent in academic studies. The National Assement study gives credibility to the displacement hypothesis. Two other studies observed similar effects. The California State Department of Education conducted a study in 1980, that showed that television caused a "relatively sharp decline on mathematics, reading, and written expression examinations at both the 6th and 12th grade levels". (Hornik 195) The second study conducted by Morgan and Gross found correlation between television hours with each reading ,mathematics, and language competencies. The study found correlations of -0.20 for the sixth through ninth graders that participated. (Hornik) The important point in the past studies is that television affects not only literacy but also mathematics, and language skills. This is the strongest evidence yet that supports the displacement theory, along with the Alwin and Hall studies this is the strongest evidence yet for the displacement theory.
chester312

Does Technology Make Us Smarter or Dumber? | TIME.com - 0 views

  • Frequent users of smartphones quickly get used to the “auto-complete” function of their devices—the way they need only type a few letters and the phone fills in the rest. Maybe too used to it, in fact. This handy function seems to make adolescent users faster, but less accurate, when responding to a battery of cognitive tests, according to research published in 2009 in the journal Bioelectromagnetics.
    • amkodya
       
      Frequent users of smartphones quickly get used to the "auto-complete" function of their devices-the way they need only type a few letters and the phone fills in the rest.
  • A study led by researchers at the University of Coventry in Britain surveyed a group of eight- to twelve-year-olds about their texting habits, then asked them to write a sample text in the lab. The scientists found that kids who sent three or more text messages a day had significantly lower scores on literacy tests than children who sent none
    • amkodya
       
      ********
  • The ready availability of search engines is changing the way we use our memories, reported psychologist Betsy Sparrow of Columbia University in a study published in Science last year. When people expect to have future access to information, Sparrow wrote, “they have lower rates of recall of the information itself and enhanced recall instead for where to access it.” It’s good to know where to find the information you need—but decades of cognitive science research shows that skills like critical thinking and problem-solving can be developed only in the context of factual knowledge. In other words, you’ve got to have knowledge stored in your head, not just in your computer.
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  • Email is a convenient way to communicate, but trying to answer messages while also completing other work makes us measurably less intelligent. Glenn Wilson, psychiatrist at King’s College London University, monitored employees over the course of a workday and found that those who divided their attention between email and other tasks experienced a 10-point decline in IQ. Their decrease in intellectual ability was as great as if they’d missed a whole night’s sleep, and twice as great as if they’d been smoking marijuana.
  • Way back in 2001, reading specialists Anne Cunningham and Keith Stanovich reported in the Journal of Direct Instruction that scores on a test of general knowledge were highest among people who read newspapers, magazines and books, and lowest among those who watched a lot of TV. Watching television, they noted, is “negatively associated with knowledge acquisition” — except when the TV watching involved public television, news, or documentary programs. Cunningham and Stanovich didn’t look at Internet use, but the same information divide exists online: high-quality, accurate information, and, well, fluff.
amkodya

Is 'texting' destroying literacy skills | drwilda - 0 views

  • Back in the day there was this book entitled “Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know.” It was published in 1988 and was written by E.D. Hirsch, Jr. Moi liked the concept, some others, not so much. “Cultural Literacy” is defined by Education. Com: Having sufficient common knowledge, i.e., educational background, experiences, basic skills, and training, to function competently in a given society (the greater the level of comprehension of the given society’s habits, attitudes, history, etc., the higher the level of cultural literacy)
    • amkodya
       
      Literacy is defined as having sufficient common knowledge.
  • Middle school students who frequently use “tech-speak”—omitting letters to shorten words and using homophone symbols, such as @ for “at” or 2nite for “tonight”—performed worse on a test of basic grammar, according to a new study in New Media & Society.
    • amkodya
       
      Tech-speak is defined as purposely shortening words, combining numbers with letters for abbreviation and using homophone symbols.
  • Drew P. Cingel, a doctoral candidate in media, technology, and society at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., conducted the experiment when he was an undergraduate with the Media Effects Research Laboratory at Penn State University in University Park, Pa. under director S. Shyam Sundar. The researchers surveyed 228 6th, 7th, and 8th graders in central Pennsylvania on their daily habits, including the number of texts they sent and received, their attitudes about texting, and their other activities during the day, such as watching television or reading for pleasure. The researchers then assessed the students using 22 questions adapted from a 9th-grade grammar test to include only topics taught by 6th grade, including verb/noun agreement, use of correct tense, homophones, possessives, apostrophes, comma usage, punctuation, and capitalization.
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  • Mr. Cingel, who published the study while at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C., and Mr. Sundar found that the more often students sent text messages using text-speak (shortened words and homophones), the worse their grammar—a concern as 13- to 17-year-olds send more than twice the number of text messages each month than any other age group.
    • amkodya
       
      The more that students send text messages that use tech-speak, the worse their grammar is. 13-17 year old send more than 2x more text messages then any other group.
  • People get creative in terms of trying to express a lot. The economy of expression forces us to take shortcuts with our expression. We know people are texting in a hurry, they are on mobile devices, and so they are making these compromises,” Mr. Sundar said. “It’s not surprising that grammar is taking a back seat in that context. What is worrisome is it somehow seems to transfer over to their offline grammar skills. They are not code-switching offline.”
    • amkodya
       
      In order to get a messages across quickly in our fast-paced lives, we're allowing a margin or acceptable errors that seems to be increasing as time goes on. This is starting affect how people use grammar outside of text messages.
  • In that way, students who use tech-speak differ from those who speak multiple languages; multilingual children have been found to switch back and forth easily among their languages in different contexts and may actually be more flexible in other ways of thinking. Tech-speak is similar enough to standard English that researchers believe it may bleed over into different contexts more easily….
    • amkodya
       
      Multilingual and those who speak tech-speak differ. Multilingual's easily switch back and forth between their different languages and are more flexible in thinking. Tech-speakers blend the tech-language into the English language.
chester312

Multitasking while studying: Divided attention and technological gadgets impair learnin... - 0 views

  • Although the students had been told at the outset that they should “study something important, including homework, an upcoming examination or project, or reading a book for a course,” it wasn’t long before their attention drifted: Students’ “on-task behavior” started declining around the two-minute mark as they began responding to arriving texts or checking their Facebook feeds. By the time the 15 minutes were up, they had spent only about 65 percent of the observation period actually doing their schoolwork.
    • amkodya
       
      Attention seems to drift within 2 minutes of focusing due to texts or Facebook. Out of 15 min, only about 9.75 min were spent working on homework. If we scale this to an 60 min, only 39 minutes out of the hour were spent on school work. Out of a 7 hour school day, this would be scaled to 4.55. What valuable information is being missed during the 2.5 hours of distraction?
  • But evidence from psychology, cognitive science, and neuroscience suggests that when students multitask while doing schoolwork, their learning is far spottier and shallower than if the work had their full attention. They understand and remember less, and they have greater difficulty transferring their learning to new contexts.
  • One large survey found that 80 percent of college students admit to texting during class; 15 percent say they send 11 or more texts in a single class period.
amkodya

Technology and Damage to Literacy - 0 views

  • However, our dependency on technology can also make us lazy. Why bother to strain our eyes reading when the television will tell us about important occurrences and entertain us? Why write a letter when your family member or friend can be talked to directly over the telephone? Avoiding the practice of certain literacies will eventually lower the level of one's literacy. To avoid decreasing levels of literacy caused by technology certain precautions must be taken.
    • amkodya
       
      TELEVISION
  • Raskin argues this point and also states that computers as teachers may be a bad idea. Students may never acquire adequate social skills and also may not learn efficiently if computers are the main sources of instruction. Ogbu writes that minorities may have a disadvantage in educational institutions. Because technology can be used in classrooms more often there is more potential for inequality. The schools with more resources will be able to offer students more technology and an even better education. Technology can damage education and literacy
  • Hirsch says that in order to be culturally literate one only needs to know a certain amount of specific ideas. If there are 5,000 ideas that when known are adequate for understanding a culture then if it were easy to look up these 5,000 ideas on demand the culture would be understood. Raskin proposes that a computer could store a list of these ideas along with descriptions making "it easy for an uncultured person encountering one of the expressions to look it up in the database and get the general picture" ( Raskin, p. 202). Hirsch believes that schools provide the common background, but if a database of cultural references existed then schools would not need teach what the students already have easy access to. The schools could teach the students how to use the database and the students would never need to become culturally literate
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  • Technology does have the potential to destroy cultural,
  • The select group of ideas important to a society must also exist before technology can make memorizing the list pointless. It is only possible for students to be taught so much information in their academic lives and for all schools to collaborate and decide what should be taught would be impossible. In the generation of Hirsch's father the amount of knowledge the world possessed was not as great. The more the world learns the more options there are for subject material taught and the harder it becomes to unify subject material. It is probably true that teaching methods are improving while we learn but it seems like unless there are incredible improvements in teaching there will always be vast amounts of knowledge which cannot be taught in an academic life. Also, if schools go in the opposite direction of Hirsch's desire then the population will have a diverse knowledge instead of equal. Communication may not be as good but there are obviously benefits to diversity. If we ignore certain subjects then we may miss out on making possible discoveries. If Hirsch were successful in getting schools to agree on subject material, then schools might agree that studying certain types of cells in trees is unimportant because more time should be spent on Shakespeare so references and communication could improve. The world of people would lose out on some specific areas of study so people could communicate better. It is possible that by studying a specific tree cell less for the sake of communication could cause a disease cure not to be found if the extra study of cells would lead to a discovery.
  • standard education is important in creating literate adults.
  • Hirsch, in "Literacy and Cultural Literacy," states that standard education is important in creating literate adults. Hirsch believes that "we will achieve a just and prosperous society only when our schools ensure that everyone commands enough shared knowledge to be able to communicate effectively with everyone else" ( Hirsch, p. 32). If everyone has a similar education then communication is made easier because certain things can be assumed. Hirsch uses examples which occur in the US such as knowing about currency and which side of the road one is supposed to drive on. For more complicated ideas, schools are responsible for supplying the knowledge. These direct comments about education and literacy strengthen his position. Schools are the primary sources of background for most people. For instance, Hirsch says that in his father's generation his father could say to his colleagues, "there is a tide" ( Hirsch, p. 9), and because his colleagues all had been educated in Shakespeare's writings his colleagues would know to make some important business decisions
  • as technology continues to improve the imbalances will only increase. The schools which have adequate money will be able to buy computers and other technology which improves education. All public schools are supposed to receive near-equal money from governments but public schools can receive donations from parents and other organizations. Depending on the location of a school the school might receive a lot of money or only a little. Schools located in poor, predominately minority areas such as the schools in Ogbu's examples would be likely to not have adequate money for new technologies. If other students are benefiting from being taught from computers and also are becoming computer literate, a skill applicable in the work-place, then the students lacking technologies will not be able to compete outside of school. The fortunate students will have a definite advantage and the unfortunate students will be even further behind.
  • Raskin fears that a computer could damage students, claiming that "computerized instruction robs the student of the warm human guiding hand, thus dehumanizing the process of education and cognitive development-possibly with unimaginably monstrous long-range consequences" ( Raskin, p. 32).
  • Young students are likely to mimic and acquire attitudes from teachers and experiences, so if the computer "teacher" were to appear mean the student may acquire mean attitudes and act violently towards other students. The computer could act friendly but it would be difficult for a computer to appear personal. The student may learn that computers are friendly and begin to lose trust in humans. Damage such as this, if done at a young age, could inhibit a successful social life for the student. Nonetheless, in the case where human teachers are abusive or violent the computer teacher may be an advantage even if the student acquires some alienation towards other people. Still, the best scenario for young students is for them to have friendly, human teachers. This way the student becomes familiar with interacting with people and receives a "warm human guiding hand."
  • This progression has led software developers to become more advanced but allowed common computer users to be less advanced. The developers' computer literacy must be very high so that the full capabilities of the computer can be taken advantage of and a profitable product can be made. The common user is willing to pay for products which are easy to use but that takes the user farther away from what the computer is actually doing. A user can be naive about how computers work, thus being less computer literate, and still be able to use computers effectively. It is good that technology is becoming more accessible to people but it is bad that this is allowing literacy to decrease. However, it is possible that this decrease in literacy may be acceptable. Higher technologies can be used without the literacy and instead of people spending time learning how to use technology they can spend their time acquiring other knowledge.
  • Technology does have the potential of damaging literacy. If Hirsch is correct about cultural literacy depending on a certain set of ideas then technology may advance to the point where we can use databases constantly and not need have as much knowledge as we do now.
  • students do not need to develop social skills to interact with a computer and may even be damaged from this lack of human interaction. To prevent this, schools should not use computer teaching a majority of the time
  • performance is not hindered regardless of whether or not a student's culture is predominantly oral since "children of illiterate Chinese immigrants have done quite well in American schools" ( Ogbu, p. 4). So if a student of a certain race can become literate independent of what culture he is from then literacy must depend on education. Schools teach the literacy skills needed to compete for jobs: "in modern societies the school is the principal institution adapting children to bureaucratized industrial economy" ( Ogbu, p. 32). If a group of students is not receiving a fair education then that group will not be able to compete in the work-force. If the discontinuities in education are fixed then literacy will improve for the groups which were being hurt. Ogbu has a strength in that he believes that educational institutions provide means for later survival but he also makes it seem like our schools are unfair and it is impossible for everyone to get a good education.
amkodya

Education World: Does Texting Harm Students' Writing Skills? - 0 views

  • Cyber slang is suspected of damaging students’ writing acumen. Cyber slang is a term used to describe shortcuts, alternative words, or even symbols used to convey thoughts in an electronic document. Because so many digital media limit the number of characters an author can use at a time, students are becoming more creative to get the most out of their limited space. Common cyber-slang terms that have made their way into popular speech include BFF (best friends forever), LOL (laugh out loud) and WTF (what the ____).
  • “I think it makes sense for these social conversations to be lightweight or light-hearted in terms of the syntax,” said President of Dictionary.com Shravan Goli. “But ultimately, in the world of business and in the world they will live in, in terms of their jobs and professional lives, students will need good, solid reading and writing skills.
  • The Times Daily newspaper cites a recent report from Pew Internet and American Life Project, "Writing, Technology and Teens," which found that the cell phone text-based abbreviated communications teens use are showing up in more formal writing.
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