Misinformation Debate Presentation

1. TEAM B
The snarkiest of the teams.

2. HASTECHNOLOGY LEDTO AN
INCREASE IN LITERACY SKILLS?
The onslaught of Digital information
hinders the storage of factual knowledge
and it affects our ability to learn.
In his recently published book, ‘The
Shallows: What The Internet Is Doing To
Our Brains’ technology writer Nicholas
Carr argues that “we are sabotaging
ourselves, trading away the seriousness
of sustained attention for the frantic
superficiality of the Internet”. He
observes that the “mere existence of the
online world has made it much harder to
engage with difficult texts and complex
ideas.”
So where do we start to debunk the big
question – has technology actually
improved literacy?

3. WHAT IS LITERACY?
In order to find if
technology has or has not
improved literacy in our
society, we first have to
define what literacy
means. So what exactly
does the word literacy
mean to us?

4. THE DEFINITION OF LITERACY:
The National Assessment of
Adult Literacy (NAAL) divides
literacy into two categories.
These categories are task-based
literacy and skills-based literacy.
NAAL further defines task-
based literacy as “the ability to
use printed and written
information to function in
society, to achieve one's goals,
and to develop one's knowledge
and potential.”
NAAL also supports that skills-
based literacy is the “successful
use of printed material”, which
falls into two subclasses:
•Word-level reading skills
•Higher level literacy skills

5. THREETYPES OF LITERACY:
When the National Center for Education Statistics
sponsored the 2003 National Assessment of Adult
Literacy, they decided to add other types of
literacy to better reflect how adults use
information in functional ways. This became a
more thorough assessment since it went beyond
the traditional standard of literacy, which is
measuring how many people read.
The three types of literacy they defined are:
•Prose, which covers the skills needed to
comprehend the written word and search for things
in text, among other things.
•Document, which covers skills necessary to use
things like maps, fill out forms, read food labels, and
other related things.
•Quantitative, which includes the skills of using
numbers in calculations, for things like figuring out a
tip, determining the amount of something, and so
on.
NAAL reported there was no increase in these
prose and document literacy between the last
assessment and the one done in 2003.

6. THE BREAKDOWN:
Essentially what we’re
looking for is an increase
in literary cognitive skills –
which boils down to a
person’s ability to read
and comprehend words or
literature, and use words
properly and in context.

7. HOW DOESTV AFFECT US?
We have seen there is a direct correlation to bad
writing skills and attention span when it comes to
the new technology of today. But sometimes
there are some details that we don’t attribute to
the decline of what were common literacy skills. In
the article “The Effects of Electronic Media on a
Developing Brain” by Robert Sylwester, Professor
Emeritus, it was noted that the generation in
today’s time emotionally communicate with
media. What is seen on the screen is more of a
reality to them, rather than just a communicator.
This concept has turned what used to be news into
exaggerated entertainment based on true events.
The author of this article also made it clear that
there are several components that enable our
brains to act. “Emotion drives attention, which
drives learning, memory and behavior, so mass
media often insert strong primal emotional
elements into their programming to increase
attention.” Says Sylwester.

8. WHAT ROLE DOESTEXT
MESSAGING HAVETO PLAY?
According to an article in UAB News, English
teacher Carrie Beth Buchanan, the English
Department chair at Clay-Chalkville High School in
Alabama, is already starting to notice the negative
effects of texting on her students’ grammar and
language skills. “Many high school students have
become dependent on electronic spell-checkers.
As a result, I spend a significant amount of time
circling misspelled words on assignments.”
Many teachers are starting to ask themselves if it
is the text and autocorrect functions of their
students’ phones and computers.
Buchanan often gets papers from her students
that are riddled with misspellings. She feels that
many of these problems could be resolved by
supplying the students with more options to
complete assignments handwritten. She also
hopes that it might help the students to realize the
difference between the informal setting of text
messaging and the more formal setting of an
assignment.

9. WHAT ISTWITTER’S PART?
According to an article in San Jose Mercury News,
Twitter has affected literacy in a way that is
causing concerns for the older generation as well
as teachers and professors all around. The 140
character limit of Twitter is forcing those
"tweeting" to shorten, abbreviate, misspell, and at
most times use acronyms just to make everything
fit.
In the long run doing so will affect their ability to
construct proper sentences as it will become
second nature for them to form a sentence in the
least amount of words as possible.
"I was recently assigned to review resumes for an
entry-level position at my company, a job that
includes social media responsibilities. I read
through dozens of cover letters and resumes, and
was surprised by the informal word choice and
poor grammar many of these candidates used,“
said Jamie Perkins, associate marketing director
of Sunset Publishing
Jamies goes on to state that "While there is a time
and place for informalities, one should always
adhere to proper grammar, sentence structure
and spelling, especially when reaching out to a
potential employer."

10. HOW DOES FACEBOOK FIT IN?
Facebook has opened the door to short-handed
typing, inappropriate grammar, and misspellings.
Social media is taking the place of social skills and
the ability to hold a logical conversation outside of
a computer screen. With a new social age new
habits are made that have become harmful to an
education standpoint and social standpoint.
We live in a world full of shortcuts with LOL,
OMG, and ROFL. There is nothing wrong with
using these phrases, but we are sometimes unable
to distinguish when these are appropriate and
when they should not even be thought about and
that can lead to problems. But the bigger problem
here would be incorrect grammar usage.
An article from hoofprint.net points to this and
many other deficiencies that technology
contributes towards personal development.

11. WHAT ARETEACHERS SEEING?
According to Common
Sense Media many teachers
are starting to report that
their students are beginning
to be adversely affected by
different forms of
technology. Some of the
more common forms of
technology are “defined as
TV, music, video games,
texting, iPods, cell phone
games, social networking
sites, apps, computer
programs, online videos,
and websites students use
for fun.”

12. LET’S LOOK ATTHE NUMBERS:
Technology’s Effect On
Students’ Writing Skills
Decreased A
Lot
Decreased
Somewhat
No Change
or Improved
If we want to look at studied numbers,
71% of these teachers are saying most
forms of entertainment media use has
affected their students either “a lot
(34%)” or “somewhat (37%)” in that area.
If we want to find another problem spot
for teachers we can look at writing skills
where 6 out of 10 teachers will agree that
the use of entertainment media “has
hurt their writing skills ‘a lot’ (19%) or
‘somewhat’ (39%.)”
Teachers also point to the time
consumption of media as a major factor
of incomplete studies and homework.
slightly less than half (48%) inform us
that media meant for entertainment use
has impaired the “quality of students’
homework ‘a lot’ (15%) or ‘somewhat’
(33%).” a more specific form of media
could be looked at as entertainment
media. which is just as detrimental in
affecting their student with their face to
face communication skills (59%) and
their critical thinking skills (42%).

13. WHAT DO STUDIES SHOW?
Science Daily reports that in a study conducted by
Patricia Greenfield, a distinguished professor of
psychology at UCLA, where she gave an amount
of students in a classroom access to the internet
during a lecture and encouraged them to use it.
After the lecture they were tested on what was
taught and results showed that those given access
to the internet during the lecture performed worse
than those who had no internet access. This study
has proven that the use of technology during a
class or lecture prevents students from getting a
greater grasp on the information that was
provided to them.
Other studies have shown that reading for
pleasure develops imagination, reflection and
critical thinking, as well as vocabulary. "Reading
for pleasure is the key to developing these skills.
Students today have more visual literacy and less
print literacy. Many students do not read for
pleasure and have not for decades,” says
Greenfield.
(Graph depicts data from the NAEP program.)

14. WHAT DO OFFICIAL REPORTS
SAY?
Between the years 2004 and
2007, the No Child Left
Behind Act called for the
U.S. Department of
Education to head a think
tank to investigate the
effectiveness of educational
technology in selected
schools.Their findings were
collaborated into a
congressional report called
‘Effectiveness of Reading
and Mathematics Software
Products: Findings From
Two Student Cohorts’.

15. WHAT DIDTHE REPORT SAY?
In the executive summary
published in 2009, the document
states that in the first year’s study
there was no significant increase in
test scores for the schools that had
been chosen to implement the
learning software.The document
further stated that “effects on test
scores were not statistically
different than zero.”
In the second year of observation,
there were further data collection
restraints placed on the program,
but the results were essentially the
same. While some school districts
would benefit from the software,
others would suffer.

16. WHAT ISTHE DATA SAYING?
The collected data shows us that,
overall, literacy rates have not
changed significantly. It also shows
us that geographical location,
social class, and whether or not
one’s parents went to college have
the most drastic effects on literacy
rates, while technology has
virtually no effect at all.
So what exactly is technologies
role in literary development if any
at all?
(Graph depicts data from the
NAEP program.)

17. FINAL STATEMENT
Has technology made literacy worse? Not in all ways.
Has technology made literacy better? The answer to
that, so far, is no.
It’s possible that in the future technology will be able to
help us enhance all forms of literacy, but we’re not there
yet. To paraphrase Sherry Turkle in her Ted Talk
Connected, But Alone? we are still in the young lovers
stage with technology. We like it and we don’t want to
see its faults, but the problems are there.
One problem we are seeing is that people rely so much
on technology that they are losing some aspects of
functional literacy, such as figuring out the meanings of
words based on context clues.
In the most technical sense of the word you could say a
lot of people are literate because they know how to read,
but is it true literacy if they can’t comprehend what they
read, write a professional paper, or perform other basic
literary functions? The data and research we have
provided in this presentation is indicative of this.
Technology has the ability to improve the way we learn,
but it still has a ways to go.

18. TEAM SNARK
Imani Burger, Esteban Burgos, Matthew Burkett, Dallin Burns, Alicia
Corley, NicholasCornett, AaronCoronado,ValindaCoyle, JacobWard
(Global Document)