Students Use Emoticons In Homework And Teachers Are…>:-O

Teachers beware, the emoticons are coming.

To all you luddites out there, emoticons are those little digital smiley faces you see by tilting your head to the left.

And, apparently, the kids love �em so much they�re using them offline too.

According to a survey by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, a quarter of teens have used emoticons in school assignments.

And that�s not the only trait of casual online & text messaging style that�s making the jump to formal writing: �half of the teens surveyed say they sometimes fail to use proper capitalization and punctuation in assignments, while 38 percent have carried over the shortcuts typical in instant messaging or e-mail messages, such as LOL for �laughing out loud.��

Teachers are understandably skeptical, but the folks at Pew say not to worry.

â��Itâ��s a teachable moment,â�� said Amanda Lenhart, senior research specialist at Pew. â��If you find that in a childâ��s or studentâ��s writing, thatâ��s an opportunity to address the differences between formal and informal writing. They learn to make the distinction… just as they learn not to use slang terms in formal writing.â��

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