Blogs

• 23Feb2010

  To blog or not to blog: that isn't the question

  Posted by Christina Clark

  By Dr Christina Clark (PhD), Head of Research, National Literacy Trust

  Our new report on writing, published at the beginning of this month, has caused something of a stir in the media and online. Fittingly, research which suggests that new technology may have educational benefits for young people’s writing has been examined in blogs, debated in comments posted on news articles, and spread across the globe via tweets and ‘retweets’ on micro blogging service Twitter.

  The first significant study of young people’s attitudes to writing in the UK, our report finds that young people who engage with technology based texts enjoy writing more than young people who don’t (57% vs. 40%, respectively). Blog writers, as well as young people with a social networking site (SNS) profile, are also more confident writers. These are altogether encouraging findings as research (such as Twist, Schagen and Hodgson, 2007) has shown that confidence and enjoyment are closely linked to the development of skills.

  The research also finds that blog owners and those with a profile on a SNS are significantly more likely to regularly write an array of texts compared with young people who do not have a blog or a SNS profile. For example, blog writers are significantly more likely to write notes to other people, short stories, letters, song lyrics, poems, reviews, plays/ screenplays and in a diary/ journal. This means that blog owners in particular appear to do more creative writing than young people who do not own blogs.

  Unsurprisingly, as confident users of new media, many of those talking about the research online are positive about the benefits of technology. The Tech Blorge blogger says, “I think the Web is actually helping literacy because it provides endless opportunities for kids to hone their skills in front of a real audience”. But there are also online voices subscribing to commonly held perceptions about the negative impact of new media: namely that blogs, SNS and other forms of technology are a waste of young people’s time and dumb down their literacy and other core skills. Soaring_eagle1 posted a comment on The Independent website, saying that, “Writing is wonderful and actually an art, blogging and technology on the whole are an atrocity and isn't an art, it is turning our children into morons in many cases”.

  Portraying writing as a high art is not necessarily the most helpful concept for young people and other learners disengaged with writing. Interestingly, despite the poster’s apparent dislike of new technology, they were in fact using it to broadcast their views and interact with a live news story, clearly demonstrating that, like it or not, new technologies provide new opportunities for communication and are already part of everyday life.

  An equally hot debate on the impact of technology is the effects of ‘text speak’, which is frequently blamed for the decline of young people’s literacy skills. Our research found that owning a mobile phone certainly did not alter writing enjoyment, attitudes or behaviour. In fact, some research has shown that as long as young people understand when different forms of writing are appropriate, texting and other technologies are linked positively with literacy achievement. For example, comparing exam papers from the past 25 years, Massey (2005) found that teenagers today are "ten times more likely to use non-standard English in written exams than in 1980, using colloquial words, informal phrases and text messaging shorthand – such as m8 for 'mate', 2 instead of 'too' and u for 'you’.” However, the same study also found that teenagers are now using far more complex sentence structures, a wider vocabulary and a more accurate use of capital letters, punctuation and spelling.
  
  Ultimately, the debate is not whether children should engage in new technologies, as this is inevitable, but how practitioners can utilise technologies to tap into children’s and young people’s passion and confidence in these new forms of writing to build core skills. Practising writing, in whatever form, makes perfect.

  To read the full report, Young people’s writing: Attitudes, behaviour and the role of technology visit http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/research/writing_survey_2009.html

Tags: Children, Our surveys, Schools & teaching, Social inclusion, Young People

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