The disintegration of a language

One of the things that has really been getting to me with technology is how it is impacting the youth of today's grammar (not that I am the best, there will be a lot of errors in the document most likely). The use of chatrooms, and text messaging has really been lowering the standards of most peoples use of grammar.  

When text messaging first started we had to use the phone pad on our cell phones to communicate so I could understand the use numbers and abbreviations to communicate, but technology has come along way since then. We now have full qwerty keyboards on our cell phones so there should be no excuse to take so many shortcuts anymore and grammar should be getting better. Of course, its not.  

I think as educators we need to address this issue anyway we can. The best approach I can think of is trying to incorporate the use of instant messaging, social networks, blogs, etc... in classroom settings and require proper grammar when they are being used in the academic setting. My hope would be that when students use them in their personal life, they carry over the "good" habits they have been using in school.

There is another article written on this same subject that is pretty interesting. I really liked his title, and agreed with a lot of what the author said. WTF's up with IM Gramar

A WYSIWYG for educators

As an instructional designer and faculty trainer I am always trying out new technology to help faculty create online courses more effectively. The latest one that I have come across is Softchalk. Softchalk is a wysiwyg editor of sorts that lets faculty create lessons plans in html pages without having to know html.

This product also assists faculty in created 508 compliant material for the courses and integrates very will with most learning management systems, such as blackboard.  What I like most about Softchalk is that it is very easy to use and train faculty to use. It has all the basic text editing capabilities and even adds in some of the most common multimedia tools, such as video and audio. 

One of the things I think that sets it apart from other editors though is its built in activity tools to create flash based activities that are 508 compliant. There are activities such as a slideshow, drag and drop, matching and timelines. Another powerful feature is the styles that it comes with. These styles allow faculty to turn there Softchalk document into a full featured learning objects to deliver to students.

My department just had their first softchalk training session with 11 faculty, and the response was very positive. It seems like this is a tool that will be put to some good use.