Professor Van Ry

From Twitter to whiteboards, digital technology has “tangible, beneficial impacts on student writing” and on writing instruction, according to nearly 2,500 middle and high school teachers surveyed by the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project.

But those same teachers—most of whom are teaching highly capable students enrolled in Advanced Placement, honors, and accelerated courses—also worry that those same technologies are making students more likely to “take shortcuts,” more likely to let the truncated language of text messages and social media “creep” into their research papers, and less able to “produce a solid piece of writing containing a coherent and persuasive argument that synthesizes material well.”

The survey results were released … in a report titled “The Impact of Digital Tools on Student Writing and How Writing is Taught in Schools.” The document is the third of three major reports by the Pew Research Center on technology use in schools. <Read more.>

Via Benjamin Herol, Education Week.