Thursday, May 17, 2007

articles

Douglas, L. (2007, Mar. 25). Chatroom slang irks teachers, Jamaica Observer. http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/html/20070324T210000-0500_120831_OBS_CHAT_ROOM_SLANG_IN_SCHOOL_ESSAYS_IRKS_TEACHERS.asp. Accessed 5-07.

Reuters (2007, Apr. 26). Report: Text messaging harms written language. CNN.Com, Technology. http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/04/26/ireland.text.message.reut/index.html. Accessed 5-07.

Clark, T. (2003, Apr. 4). Japan's generation of computer refuseniks. Japan Media Review. http://www.ojr.org/japan/wireless/1047257047.php. Accessed 5-07.

This last article impressed me most, perhaps because it shows how quickly a culture, more advanced than ours, can turn from things we consider everyday, given, and standard, such as typing skills (or using Google well). This article came up in my classes and I asked my students about it. I learned several things which may or may not be true.

-Text typing is usually done with two thumbs. There are different styles. Some cell phones today have entire keyboards that are typed just as ours is- a kind of halfway between laptop and mobile. These are still evolving and depend partly on what you are willing to pay and what you need.

-Although the cell phones in this article are quite limited in terms of the types of characters they were able to produce and the quality of websites they were able to receive, this was a temporary condition that is now probably corrected.

I have a lot to say about this, but it will wait for now.