Week 1 Blog - Helping Students Use Social Networks Appropriately

I read a very interesting and timely article today on edutopia. It is called " How to Help Students Use Social Media Effectively". It was written by Andrew Marcinek. You can find the article on my RSS feed. The article discusses the fact that there are so many ways for students to share their thoughts and ideas that we as teachers need to use this opportunity to teach them to communicate effectively. The article says that eventhough we are using technology we should still pay attention to spelling and grammar. I agree and think this is very true. If this is modern day writing we still want to teach it correctly and not accept spelling errors and grammar mistakes all over the place! We all come across many little mistakes in blogs, tweets, etc. that we are letting them slip by and they are becoming more and more common and accepted. As Marcinek says, " If we want to maintain the sanctity of the English language" we need to hold students and professionals accountable for the way they convey their messages.