I had already read Hatchet before listening to this podcast, but I was pleasantly surprised regardless. The various voices involved in the “-cast” blended well with the background music. They were able to transition through various tone shifts and excerpts of the story and combined sound effects for added realism. For such a short novel, there was a good amount of depth in this podcast. It seems to be a well scripted and finished podcast in my opinion. Although they did not include information about where to find Hatchet, there was a nice suspenseful ending.

One thing that I am concerned about is the lack of group work in what will be our podcasts. Most of the ones I have heard from our school, are performed by one person only. While it is not innately better or worse, I believe it does make those podcasts monotonous.

Here’s Podcast’s Link

Texting, or SMS, is an adaption of the main language to deal with the cumbersome “keyboards” found on most cell-phones. There are now phones that support the full standard QWERTY key set, but the tradition has held its place. The plethora of acronyms and contractions allow most communication to be shortened a great deal, something to consider when there is a charge for every 160 or so characters.

The massive increase of communication from texting, can bring more familiarity with written communication. Unfortunately it does little to raise the students ability or the quality of their work.

Personally, I like the use of acronyms, and the applicability of the short expressions. However, they do not fit within the current education system. “Formal” institutes of education are responsible for teaching the “formal” writing. Therefore, the crude, yet efficient forms of texting, and the (ideally) well thought out prose and rhetoric do not mix. Like oil and water, I believe they are naturally separate, and that mixing them in any way only makes more of a mess.

If a student fails in their essay’s because they are incapable of formal writing, then they fail. The class is there for a reason – to teach the person how to communicate with the written text ‘in a certain way‘. There is a standard that must be met, and it is the responsibility of the students to grow beyond their current capacities.

I do not believe in the pigeonholing of a child’s creativity, nor should the schools support that type of teaching. However, there are currently no classes that I am aware of that have “Textisms Languages” in their curriculum. There is absolutely no reason why texting should be accepted in the writing of classrooms.

If we look at the picture holistically, we find that texting is a sub-set of writing that the youth of this age use and support. All forms of communication are meant to connect to a predetermined context. As best I can see now, texting will not fit any context other than the IM/cell-phone world.