Plagiarism Lines Blur for Students in Digital Age ~ Trip Gabriel

The New York Times - Aug. 1st 2010

In this article, Trip Gabriel explores the problem of plagiarism in the digital age. Not only is plagiarism easier for students to commit online, but Gabriel shows that the idea of authorship is becoming more obscure as today's students view text as information for anyone to take. Are students legitimately out of touch with the concept of authorship and intellectual property, or are they just lazy and unprepared for college?       

The Medium Is the Medium ~ David Brooks - The New York Times - July 2010

In this op-ed article, famous writer and columnist, David Brooks, provides new arguments for why the act of reading books is superior to internet reading.  He refers to a philanthropist who puts it like this, '"It's not the physical presence of the books that produces the biggest impact," she suggested. "It's the change in the way the students see themselves as they build a home library. They see themselves as readers, as members of a different group."'

'The Dumbest Generation' by Mark Bauerlein - Los Angeles Times

Bauerlin writes, "In the four minutes it probably takes to read this review, you will have logged exactly half the time the average 15- to 24-year-old now spends reading each day. That is, if you even bother to finish. If you are perusing this on the Internet, the big block of text below probably seems daunting, maybe even boring. Who has the time? Besides, one of your Facebook friends might have just posted a status update!"

How does technology impact how you learn and/or teach? How does it impact kids?

Watch this short, thought-provoking video! 

This project was created to inspire teachers to use technology in engaging ways to help students develop higher level thinking skills. Equally important, it serves to motivate district level leaders to provide teachers with the tools and training to do so.

Growing Up Online

Fontline January 22, 2008

In Growing Up Online, FRONTLINE takes viewers inside the very public private worlds that kids are creating online, raising important questions about how the Internet is transforming childhood. "The Internet and the digital world was something that belonged to adults, and now it's something that really is the province of teenagers, " says C.J. Pascoe, a postdoctoral scholar with the University of California, Berkeley's Digital Youth Research project.

In addition to the PBS film, visitors to this site will find other readings and links as well as teachers' guides.

Dawn of the Digital Natives

By Steven Johnson

The Gauridian Feb. 7th 2008

According to a study for the National Endowment for the Arts, as our culture focuses more on electronic media, reading is dangerously on the decline. In this article, Steven Johnson, author of Everything Bad Is Good For You, challenges the NEA study by suggesting that on-screen literacy is not factored into the study. To Johnson, this omission is preposterous. He writes, "Odds are that you are reading these words on a computer monitor. Are you not exercising the same cognitive muscles because these words are made out of pixels and not little splotches of ink?... And of course we are writing more, and writing in public for strangers: novel readers may have declined by 10%, but the number of bloggers has gone from zero to 25 million."

From Pencils to Pixels: The Stages of Literacy Teachnology

by Dennis Baron

While many assume that our dependence on computers signifies a literacy revolution, Baron suggests that our relationship to computers is, "simply the latest step in a long line of writing technologies." He argues that many earlier forms of technology, including writing itself, were, "met with suspicion as well as enthusiasm."  

In Baron's opinion, it is too early to speculate on how computers will change the way we use words, and on how literacy practices may be forever changed.    

How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live

College Students 'Addicted' to Social Media, Study Finds

By Rick Nauert, PhD, Senior News Editor, PsychCentral.com

American college students are "addicted" to the instant connections and information afforded by social media, a new study suggests.

According to researchers, students describe their feelings when they have to abstain from using media in literally the same terms associated with drug and alcohol addictions: in withdrawal, frantically craving, very anxious, extremely antsy, miserable, jittery, and crazy.

Search engines like Google have made it infinitely easier to access information quickly, but how is the Internet changing our brains - our ability to read, focus and think? What might we have to give up in exchange for easy information? In this article, Nicholas Carr argues that there is more at stake than we may realize.  

"Literacy Debate: Online, R U Really Reading?" ~ Moto Rich

The New York Times, July 27th 2008

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.

But others say the Internet has created a new kind of reading, one that schools and society should not discount. The Web inspires a teenager like Nadia, who might otherwise spend most of her leisure time watching television, to read and write.