Number of Posts: 31
Posts 21 - 30
C'est la rentrée à l'école numérisée
(It's the start of the digital school year)
Newspaper | Le Temps
Date | 30.8.2016
Language | French
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | childhood, digitized education, school, smartphone, youth
Summary | A school principal explains how digital devices can help children learn. He wants to progressively digitize 50% of the school material. Smartphones and laptops don't ruin the school system; we just need to know how to use them. At his private school, everyone has a an iPad where they can find their class material. Now, the school provides each child with an iPad, but soon everyone will bring their own device. Our digitized society has the advantage of tightening social relationships between people, which is something not everyone agrees with.
Image Description | Photograph of a child using a tablet.
Image Tags | chart, female(s), male(s), school, tablet
Des écoles banissent le portable des préaux
(Schools prohibit cell phones on their playgrounds)
Newspaper | 20 minutes
Date | 12.9.2016
Language | French
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | school, smartphone, technology-free, threat, youth
Summary | Several schools in Switzerland have prohibited the use of smartphones during recess. Students do not learn as well as before, and interactions in the classrooms are not as good. Other people don't agree with this new rule. Schools need to accept the fact that everyone owns a smartphone nowadays. People communicate, which is a huge advantage of smartphones. Also, students should be able to be "free" during recess. They might want to be alone, and this is okay. Finally, a school principal thinks that prohibiting smartphones during recess is better for students; smartphones hinder the development of intercommunication.
Image Description | Photograph of a group of young male teenagers smiling and looking at their smartphones.
Image Tags | male(s), smartphone
Schriftliche Forschheiten: Vom Niedergang der Höflichkeit
(Written briskness: On the demise of politeness)
Newspaper | Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ)
Date | 1.9.2014
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | email, language threat, politeness, school, texting, WhatsApp, word/writing
Summary | Communication researchers agree that politeness in professional writing has decreased with the rise of digital communication. Rules of formal writing are omitted: what was“Honored Professor So-and-so” is now a simple “Hello”. Both students and also professors are reported to have a relaxed level of formality in email exchanges. This is usually seen as an influence of texting, where traditional messages of respect are omitted, but it can also be argued that the new brief communication style is a form of respecting the addressee’s time by writing efficiently.
Image Description | Photograph of a female texting; the shot does not show the person's face but emphasizes the phone.
Image Tags | female(s), hand(s), smartphone, text
Multitasking ist ein Mythos
(Multi-tasking is a myth)
Newspaper | St. Galler Tagblatt
Date | 13.12.2014
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | addiction, school, smartphone, technology-free, threat
Summary | A group of students from the College of Economics in St. Gallen (HSG) have launched a campaign to encourage fellow students to put their smartphones away during lectures. Having a smartphone available all the time significantly distracts students from the task at hand. According to a study, every hour spent studying with a smartphone at hand includes 36 minutes of smartphone activity.
Image Description | Photograph/digital image of two monkeys taking notes in a lecture hall.
Image Tags | computer/laptop, smartphone
Sklaven des Smartphones
(Slaves to smartphones)
Newspaper | Tages-Anzeiger
Date | 5.3.2015
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | school, smartphone, threat
Summary | Japan and South Korea – both highly digitized nations – experience the negative effects of omnipresent internet access. The article infers that conversations have become a rarity because smartphones and the need to update social media profiles distract people. A South Korean literature scholar states that students hardly read books anymore; therefore, government incentives for reading have been established. The article even predicts a return to analphebetization in these nations.
Image Description | Photograph of a young man's face half-hidden by his iPhone.
Image Tags | male(s), smartphone
Non, le langage “sms” ne nuit pas à l’orthographe!
(No, text message language does not harm spelling!)
Newspaper | 24 heures
Date | 22.3.2014
Language | French
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | language threat, research/study, school, texting, youth
Summary | Some people are worried that the new language of text messages is going to replace grammar, and that our children might forget how to write words properly. According to a study published in the Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, the answer is no. The results of the study show that 48% of the words are spelled according to standard spelling. The research also shows that there is no link between traditional spelling skills and text message features. Finally, they claim that the best students are the ones who use text message features the most. Other similar studies prove the same point.
Image Description | N/A
Il faut archiver nos vies pour que l’histoire vivante ne s’arrête pas
(We need to archive our lives so that history does not stop)
Newspaper | La Tribune de Genève
Date | 26.3.2014
Language | French
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | language threat, research/study, school, spelling, texting, youth
Summary | Some people claim that writing with abbreviations is harmful for standard language. Others claim that it does not; some studies demonstrate that students can perfectly write abbreviations and their "standard" equivalent. Moreover, a study showed that students who are skilled in text message language have also better spelling skills in general. Writing is part of our culture; we write more and more. Thus, our practices resemble our forefathers’. The only difference is that nowadays it is more difficult to save and record our texts, whereas in the past people used to keep their letters and messages.
Image Description | Photograph of Benjamin Chaix, the author of the opinion piece.
Image Tags | male(s)
La révolution numérique et nous
(The digital revolution and us)
Newspaper | Le Temps
Date | 20.7.2014
Language | French
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | addiction, school
Summary | Our vision and perception of the world is not only influenced by our body and conscience; it is also strongly affected by our surroundings and the world we live in. Nowadays people perceive the world through screens, they buy, play, communicate, and have access to masses of information. What comes out of the digital world is virtual as opposed to real. It is a “possible real” that didn’t find its true form concretely. Today’s man is constantly interacting; he sees the world differently than our grandparents. Should schools follow this path or get way from it?
Image Description | N/A
Le langage sms, éternel accusé de tous les maux des mots
(Text message language, always blamed for the ills of the words)
Newspaper | La Tribune de Genève
Date | 30.8.2014
Language | French
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | language threat, research/study, school, smartphone, texting, youth
Summary | Although we can now send unlimited texts on our smartphones using the spellcheck feature, text message language is still widely used, especially among the younger generation. Should we be worried about that? Researchers claim that we shouldn’t be worried; texting does not threaten the French language. According to a study, young students can make the difference between a text message and a written school assignment; they can adapt their language according to the medium. Although no study has demonstrated that text messages have any deleterious effect on spelling skills, more research is needed.
Image Description | N/A
Antiquiert chatten
(An antiquated chat)
Newspaper | Tages-Anzeiger
Date | 11.11.2015
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | emojis, school, WhatsApp, youth
Summary | Two Swiss high school students adapted the antique myth of Aeneas and Dido into a WhatsApp chat. A school assignment for their Latin class asked students to adapt ancient stories into other media. The two students reinterpreted the storyline as a WhatsApp chat between Dido and Aeneas in Latin with a lot of dramatic language (e.g. indicate shouting with all capital letters or word length with letter repetitions, and communicate emotions with emojis).
Image Description | Screenshot of a WhatsApp chat in Latin with words, emojis, and images.
Image Tags | emojis, WhatsApp
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