Thread: should we ban MSN?

Regardless of where the habit was picked up, anyone with two brain cells to rub together should know the difference between acadamia and entertainment. It isn't MSN's fault that students don't feel the need to separate the two. MSN is just a vehicle for communication; if people stay up all night chatting and not bothering to study or learn acceptable methods of writing, that's their problem, not MSN's.

Originally Posted by gren

Regardless of where the habit was picked up, anyone with two brain cells to rub together should know the difference between acadamia and entertainment. It isn't MSN's fault that students don't feel the need to separate the two. MSN is just a vehicle for communication; if people stay up all night chatting and not bothering to study or learn acceptable methods of writing, that's their problem, not MSN's.

not saying its msns fault, what happen if you got in the habit of wring the *short forms, and how do you get out of it.

I think really they shouldn't ban MSN..but just get the child to practise writing proper grammar for a while. I do it. I try not to post use abbreviations but on forums especially, i try to use proper grammar as much as I can.

But to blame MSN isn't really at fault..really i think its texting that did it so people could write as much as possible in a text but shortening the words...its not MSN's fault.

Originally Posted by exderz

not saying its msns fault, what happen if you got in the habit of wring the *short forms, and how do you get out of it.

Well, at the very least you could try not using the short forms at all, even when in chat forums. This would begin to break the habit, and would probably improve your typing skills as well.

but like they would do it anyway if they were wrighting something quick so whats the diffrents ( well me the odd time cos i have to learn how to spell right to wrighting like this helps though)

Originally Posted by gren

Well, at the very least you could try not using the short forms at all, even when in chat forums. This would begin to break the habit, and would probably improve your typing skills as well.

I think just learning how to type faster would help a lot too. Most kids use 1337 speak becuase they don't want to take the ten extra seconds it would to find the E key. I can type over 60wpm so there is no need for me to use shortened forms of words, if everyone took typing classes in school and stuck with them I'm sure this problem would be fixed. I took a typing class in the 4th grade and I was typing perfectly within two weeks with about an hour of practice every other day. If a retarded 4th grader could do it, anyone can.

I find this so funny.

Why blame MSN? It's just a vehicle. Besides, remove MSN and you'll just have a migration over to other chat protocols.

I do find it funny though that so many of you are saying that it's the parents/teachers fault that kids are using 'textspeek' in reports. Has is occured to any of you that the reason these kids are failing is BECAUSE the teacher does not approve of 'textspeek' and is trying to tell the child that proper gramer is the only accpetable way of writing the report! The teacher is doing their job!

Trust me, I teach high school and college students all the time. I CAN'T do their homework for them, as much as they would like me to try. I can sit down with them and help them with their work. I can go over tests with them the failed before they try to retake it and score better. I can give advice all day long until I'm blue in the face...but I can't do it for them.

What more do you fellows want the teacher to do? They give them a poor grade. That's really the only recourse the teacher has. We can assign more homework hoping the student will finaly learn it or we can give them a poor/failing grade. After that, the student is responcible for doing better.

These parents need to grow up. Getting a poor grade on a report is not the end of the world. But getting a wake up call about the use of proper grammer is something these kids really need. Banning MSN won't solve the problem. Educating children by consequeces will.