Team A - 2.4 Misinformation Debate

774 million adults (15 years and older) still cannot read or write – two-thirds of them (493 million) are women.

Adults who totally don’t know how to read and write would benefit greatly from these courses.

Education has been greatly improved since the dawn of the Internet, and it has made the improvement of literacy available to more people. Stay-at-home moms, for instance, can note a thing or two from reading websites and study in their spare time.

Tostan’s "Community Empowerment Program" is an award-winning, three-year nonformal education program that provides community wide trainings to help villagers lead social change projects within their communities. As part of the CEP program, Tostan offers a 150-hour cellphone literacy course--called Mobile Phone for Literacy and Empowerment--in which participants in 20 villages received 16 lessons on how to use cell phones, build literacy and numeracy skills, and use text messaging as a means to practice and learn.

Cell phone use rose to a nearly universal level (98%), from 58% at the baseline. In addition, there was a drastic improvement across the reading ability of all participants--women, men, girls, and boys (65 percent compared to 8 percent before the program).

Girls and women participating in the program greatly improved literacy and numeracy skills. Before the program, nearly 42 percent of women and 44 percent of girls reported having no literacy or numeracy skills, compared to 21 percent and 17 percent, respectively, after. More than 30 percent of girls and women rated their skills as high after the program compared to only 12 percent of women and 8 percent of girls before.

A British study published in the Journal of Computer Assisted Learning found a positive correlation between texting and literacy, concluding that texting was “actually driving the development of phonological awareness and reading skill in children.” In other words, contrary to what you might think when faced with “creative” usages such as ur for your, 2 for to, and w8 for wait, kids who text may be stronger readers and writers than those who don’t.

If you’re worried about grading a pile of The Catcher in the Rye essays written in text speak, fear not. In research conducted for a dissertation at the City University in London, graduate student Veenal Raval found that most students avoid text­isms in their schoolwork. “They are able to ‘code-switch’ the same way that I would...use slang when speaking to my friends and adopt a more formal means when talking to colleagues,” Raval told the Telegraph. In other words, students change how they spell according to the circumstances and the audience. They know to spell out the word tomorrow in a paper, but when making plans with friends, they go with tom.

Texting and “text speak” can be used to help build foundational reading skills (link is external) such as word recognition and phonological awareness. You can also use texting to generate discussions of formal and informal language (link is external) and writing for different tasks, audiences, and purposes (link is external), which are necessary skills for meeting college and career readiness standards in reading (link is external), writing (link is external), language (link is external), and speaking and listening (link is external). Although it may not seem like it, texting is writing, and students who text frequently are engaging in frequent writing (link is external). Therefore, it makes sense to harness all of that energy and use it as a way to help your students build their writing skills

Texting and “text speak” can be used to help build foundational reading skills (link is external) such as word recognition and phonological awareness.

The Internet has become so pervasive that to be truly literate in 2006 demands some degree of technological fluency or at least familiarity. According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 73% of American adults had used the Internet or e-mail as of March 2006. For the first time, the National Association of Adult Literacy—the most wide-ranging U.S. study of literacy—will test computer literacy in its 2008 survey that measures overall literacy. With such a large proportion of reading and writing taking place on the Internet, literacy has changed from a solitary pursuit into a collective one.

But surprise–the conventional wisdom is wrong. Our special report on books and the future of publishing is brim-full of reasons to be optimistic. People are reading more, not less. The Internet is fueling literacy. Giving books away online increases off-line readership. New forms of expression–wikis, networked books–are blossoming in a digital hothouse.

Although literacy learning on the Internet involves the basic processes of comprehending and writing text, it differs from print-based literacy in significant ways. Text, as defined in this book, includes sources of digital information in print or multimedia formats. Reading and writing text online is highly interactive. Writing becomes more fluent as students engage in online dialogues involving short writing–reading cycles. Online drafting and revising involve a social collaborative process between a writer and his or her immediate audience. Information research becomes a critical reading process useful for sorting through volumes of online texts to find and synthesize reliable data, rather than a memorization of the print encyclopedia. Reading through hypertexts or interactive multimedia is an active process in which the reader develops an internal narrator who synthesizes meaning and decides which link to follow next and why.

We found three primary areas in which the Internet provides curricular benefits. These were information research, writing and publishing, and participating in online learning communities. We (McNabb, Hassel, et al., 2002) also discovered prevalent instructional practices such as:   designing the Internet-based activities to help meet the diverse needs of students by engaging them through personal interests;   customizing the teaching–learning cycle in ways that motivate students to take more responsibility for their learning; and   fostering self-directed literacy learning habits among students, which researchers and teachers indicated are not only vital to, but also achievable through, Internet-based literacy learning.

The internet gives teachers and parents the opportunity to find relevant information about ways in which a child’s literacy development can be supported. New ideas about teaching and supporting children with their literacy development can be read on articles and research papers that are easily accessible on the internet. Many articles will also offer guidance on where to find additional information and advice in relation to different aspects of supporting and teaching literacy development. Free Resources Many websites offer free, printable resources that can be used to support literacy development. Some are designed to suit the age group of the child and others for the ability level of the child. The internet can also be useful in finding materials that specifically target children who have been identified in having difficulties with their literacy development. There are various resources available that support different aspects of literacy development

For example, some will target reading skills, whilst others will focus on spelling or handwriting.

Many children do not enjoy their education or any learning tasks. This may be particularly the case with those who have difficulty in attaining literacy skills. One of the ways in which problem can be combated is to make this fun. The internet can be a particularly useful tool in achieving this. Type literacy games into the toolbar of your search engine and it will come up with a large number of websites that offer activities which are both fun and educational. If a child is having fun, then they won’t think of their learning as being an arduous task and will be more motivated in completing activities. There are games on the internet that suit all ages and ability levels. If you are a teacher, it can be a fun activity to devise a list of potential sites which you may use as short activities in your lessons, or with specific students who have difficulties with literacy development.

The best method the government can use to improve literacy rates in America is to advance the system of education and education technology.

People can also make good use of education and education technology to reduce the number of illiterates in America. The internet can be used as a great tool to promote learning since it has such a wide range. Almost everyone has access to the internet and if it is utilized properly, it can spread literacy advocacies like wildfire. This can be done quite easily by using the popularity of social networking websites to speed up the process of spreading information. If enough people are made aware of the literacy problems in America then it will make the task of improving literacy rates easily achievable.

Education and Education technology can also be improved by using state of the art teaching materials. Software programs can be created especially for the goal of making academic lessons easier. Since these programs can be given game like properties, they will be much more appealing and they can make learning a fun process. There are some schools that use high tech equipment to aid them in teaching. Researching whether the usage of such equipment has increased the efficiency of schools can contribute a lot to anti-illiteracy efforts. If it is found that high tech educational equipment's are effective then the Department of Education can provide these equipment to public schools; if the results show the contrary then another plan must be devised.

Educational technology is nudging literacy instruction beyond its oral and print-based tradition to embrace online and electronic texts as well as multimedia. Computers are creating new opportunities for writing and collaborating. The Internet is constructing global bridges for students to communicate, underscoring the need for rock-solid reading and writing skills. By changing the way that information is absorbed, processed, and used, technology is influencing how people read, write, listen, and communicate.

Information Literacy: The ability to access and use information, analyze content, work with ideas, synthesize thought, and communicate results. Digital Literacy: The ability to attain deeper understanding of content by using data-analysis tools and accelerated learning processes enabled by technology. New Literacy: The ability to solve genuine problems amidst a deluge of information and its transfer in the Digital Age. Computer Literacy: The ability to accurately and effectively use computer tools such as word processors, spreadsheets, databases, and presentation and graphic software. Computer-Technology Literacy: The ability to manipulate the hardware that is the understructure of technology systems. Critical Literacy: The ability to look at the meaning and purpose of written texts, visual applications, and spoken words to question the attitudes, values, and beliefs behind them. The goal is development of critical thinking to discern meaning from array of multimedia, visual imagery, and virtual environments, as well as written text. Media Literacy: The ability to communicate competently in all media forms—print and electronic—as well as access, understand, analyze and evaluate the images, words, and sounds that comprise contemporary culture

Sending text messages - from the slang "wot" and "wanna", to the short cut "CU L8R"- may actually be improving, not damaging, young children's spelling skills, new research shows

Most text abbreviations were phonetically based, such as "wot" for "what" and combination texts, such as "C U L8r". Many children also used a form of youth code, a casual form of language such as "dat fing", "gonna" or "wanna".

Surprisingly, the children who were better at spelling and writing used the most "textisms"

But academics from Coventry University said there was “no evidence” that access to mobile phones harmed children’s literacy skills and could even have a positive impact on spelling

The research, to be published in the Journal of Computer Assisted Learning next month, found evidence of a “significant contribution of textism use to the children’s spelling development during the study”.

This study, which took account of individual differences in IQ, found higher results in test scores recorded by children using mobile phones after 10 weeks compared with the start of the study.