Remixing Learning

The American schooling system is one hot mess.  Instructors encourage independence but conformity is essential for success.  Standardized test scores are used to determine the amount of state funding a school may receive as well as a student’s progress.  But to reign myself back in, tests, by themselves, are not an adequate way to show how much one has learned.

It is a proven fact that people learn differently.  According to researchers, there are three ways in which people learn: auditory (hear), visual (see), and kinesthetic (touch).  As a personal example, my Mom is an example of a visual learner.  She often says, “See one, do one, teach one” when describing her learning process.  For me, I am unsure of which is my dominant learning type.  During a test, I am often able to picture exactly where the information is in my notes or remember the professor talking about the topic.  I suppose that makes me a visual learner as well.  However people learn in a combination of all three ways but have a preferred way of taking in information and/or skills.

People also test differently.  We all know that person that doesn’t do jack, but will ace the exam.  And, hopefully, we are not the opposite – the one that knows the material but cannot pass the exam.  Anxiety kicks in and even though you know you should not worry, you do.

Source: https://breakthestandard.wordpress.com/2012/05/05/testing-3/

Secondly, human error comes into play.  I cannot believe the amount of math exams I have taken that had no real solutions to the problems (but they were supposed to, the teachers did not check to see if the numbers worked).

What is your guy’s opinion on testing as a remix of how we learn? Let me know. ~V

Texting Lingo

With all the new technologies changing or influencing (remixing) our language, it is creating a problem in classrooms and even in the real world.  Teachers are upset that their students abbreviate simple words or use makeup words as if they were real.  Employers are upset that the people they are looking to hire cannot communicate effectively.  The root of this problem? Texting language.

This new form of language affects all people in society.  Whether one actively engages in it or not, one sees and hears the language every day.  And the constant exposure to the texting slang will ease itself into ones normal conversations/messages.

Now texting isn’t all bad, it’s just that the negative side effects are more noticeable/prominent.  I’ve briefly mentioned these earlier, so I will move onto the positives.  While there are positives to texting, they are often skipped over in favor of the negative.  One positive is: the suggestions that some devices have.  When you are texting, there may be a bar with suggested words or words that your phone predicts you are trying to type.  This can be helpful because it exposes one to different words, and a wide variety too.  Another positive to texting is the ingenuity that people have had to come up with the abbreviations.  My neighbor back home says it always pays to be lazy, because you create change. (Or something along those lines.  I’ve had to edit the story a bit.)  If you think about it, ‘lol,’ ‘jk,’ ‘brb,’ and ‘lmao’ are all shortcuts to longer phrases.  However, after a while they are beyond annoying and I personally don’t like it when people use them excessively.

So all in all, texting carries a negative connotation because of all the criticism by people in professional careers.  The bottom line is that texting does affect people’s vocabularies, but the person determines if texting is a negative or positive. ~V

Picture credits:

https://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/a/abbreviations.asp