As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!
Q: I can’t convince my students to give up their paper and pencil. What’s a great reason that will resonate with them?
A: Digital writing is easier to edit. By a factor of infinity. Anyone who has tried to erase, smudge the notes, tear the paper, knows that the digital version of editing with a simple insert is miles ahead. Why force our students to use a method that is so inferior?
I was reminded of this attribute by efriend and fellow keyboarding advocate, Dr. Bill Morgan over at Keyboarding Arts Institute.
Plus, by middle school, with even a modicum of keyboard training, students type faster than they think (about 25-30 wpm). That makes it easier to keep up with the teacher as they are note-taking.
One more: Much easier to share digital notes and other writing.
Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-18 technology for 30 years. She is the editor/author of over a hundred tech ed resources including a K-12 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum. She is an adjunct professor in tech ed, Master Teacher, webmaster for four blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice, CSTA presentation reviewer, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, contributor to NEA Today, and author of the tech thrillers, To Hunt a Sub and Twenty-four Days. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.
Thanks, Jacqui, for reminding us of how much easier it is to edit digitally than manually.
My wife, Karen, has recently contracted to convert 19 volumes of local pioneer histories from documents typed in 1964 to digital formats. Not only is she scanning the originals but she and I are transcribing, using Microsoft Word, all of the stories for digital access. Soon the single museum copy of each book in this library (stories from 1847-1869) will be available to anyone with a link to this digital library.
I rather enjoy seeing the typographical errors of the aging typist who used the slash key to “delete” her mistakes but had no whiteout to hide them. Also visible are the upper case letters at the beginning of sentences that are raised since the effort to press the Shift key actually shifted the carriage.
Please look for my best selling lesson plan, Typewriter History, in the Teachers Pay Teachers store, found online at http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Keyboarding-Arts.
Best,
Dr. Bill Morgan
Come find us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/KeyboardingArts/.
We are also sharing ideas on Pinterest at http://www.pinterest.com/KeyboardingArts/.
Thanks for adding these social links.
That’s a labor of love. At one point, I considered doing that with Gutenberg Press and realized it’s a lot more work than I planned for. Kudos to you and your wife on doing this.