IDK

I just read an interesting Tweet from Jeremiah Owyang in which he states, "Some of the sixth grade students couldn't read cursive, and when they didn't know the answer on a test, they'd write "IDK"" Does anybody have any experiences of students writing in Webish (my word) in inappropriate settings?

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Permalink Reply by Ed Jones on September 23, 2008 at 9:01am

Guess I'd wonder why IDK is inappropriate, but more crucially, why can't the sixth grade students read cursive?

If you can't read cursive, you can't look at that copy of the Declaration of Independence hanging on this wall, and see what it says about you and the rights you are given.

What else can you tell us about this situation where we're sacrificing knowledge for 15 seconds of trendy technology?

ed

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Permalink Reply by Karly on September 23, 2008 at 10:43am

I have seen teachers who use a technique to set a pattern of attempting questions rather than writing IDK ("I don't know"). If they leave the answer to a question blank or write some sort of statement like IDK, one point was removed from their score in addition to getting the marking of an incorrect answer. This could possibly make their score a negative number if they do not attempt. If they attempted at the question and got the answer incorrect, only partial points were taken away for the incorrect answers. I have found this method to be behavior changing more than detrimental to their scores.

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Permalink Reply by Ed Jones on September 23, 2008 at 11:00am

Hah! Kudos to good old Ron Hornbeck, who started me off right in high school with a -63 on an algebra homework assignment.

Perhaps those cursive writing teachers should have applied this technique?

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Permalink Reply by Nancy Bosch on September 23, 2008 at 5:04pm

I don't hear much I haven't heard before but what a good idea.

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Permalink Reply by David Kampmann on September 23, 2008 at 1:35pm

I have many students that do this on exams. I refuse to accept this as an answer. To me, it is a "cop out". An easy way to move on and not think about the question. I don't know about taking more off of a grade, but to me this is a behavior problem. It is disrespectful to the teacher that created the assignment to write that.

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Permalink Reply by Gwyneth on September 23, 2008 at 7:26pm

You mean, apart from in the emails they send me? Not in exams or tests or reports they have to hand in to me. I've been known to write 'plz 2 lve, kthx' on my whiteboard when I don't want the other teachers who use my room to rub something off.

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Permalink Reply by Sarah Hanawald on September 23, 2008 at 7:34pm

The Pew Internet and Life Research Project released a report you can download and read on kids and electronic writing vs. academic writing. "Teens write a lot, but they do not think of their emails, instant and text messages as writing. This disconnect matters because teens believe good writing is an essential skill for success and that more writing instruction at school would help them."