Keyboarding Killed The Handwriting Star

Posted by Matthew Brodsky

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Critics believe that classroom notebook integration is a threat to a child's education - especially the teaching of handwriting.

Computershave such a presence in schools today that some experts believethey are a threat to education - especially the teaching ofhandwriting. In the most digitally advanced classrooms, such as in Canada,the student to computer ratio is as low as five to one. Thoughthis ratio is extraordinary, classrooms have been digital to some degree for decades. Why the protestnow?

The answer is the notebook. It gives kids a one-to-one ratio, atool that they can use full-time for "writing," grammarexercises, and note-taking.

Old-school teachers are raising their hands in protest. Whencalled upon, they explain that there are still three Rs ingrammar school - reading, 'riting, and 'rithmatic. Allowingstudents to rely on laptops robs them of much-neededtraining in that second R. That will leave them unable to writeproper notes and perform in essay exams later in their academiccareer.

Being able to write legibly and quickly, these critics add, isalso still an essential real-world skill no matter howdigitalized that real world is. The typewriter didn’tbanish the pen and pencil to the dustbin of history, and neitherwill the laptop.

Unlike typewriters, though, computers are a much more dynamicpresence in students' lives. In many third grade classrooms, forexample, children practice how to write neatly, while learning tostart and shut down a desktop, save their documents, and drawpretty pictures with graphics software. Then they go home to IM their friends and Web surf.

What's more, as proponents point out, notebooks can helplearning-disabled children succeed in the classroom. Normally,these children would fall behind their peers because of writingand motor skills issues. But notebooks empower these kids to pullthemselves up by the proverbial bootstraps.

Notebooks are not going anywhere, and neither are pens, pencils, and paper.Kids may just have to continue to suffer through handwritingclass. Old-school educators, for their part, may just have torealize that technology is not the enemy. It may have seriousbenefits in the classroom. After all, it’s not how youcreate words that’s important. It’s how you use themthat's key.

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Comments

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