This week, while going about my morning routine, my attention was caught by a particular news story on my television. You can view the interview and the campaign ad here:
In today's digital world, digital literacy matters more than good penmanship...
Handwriting is critical to a child's educational development...
Handwriting is personal and has emotional resonance. Nothing on a screen is ever going to capture the personality that is in someone's handwriting. Handwriting is a matter of identity...
In an educational context, I believe blogging, vlogging, podcasts, and other forms of writing do reveal personality and identity. We, as educators, must ensure our students are digitally fluent to be aware of these methods (in addition to handwriting) as a means to express themselves and their creativity (within the framework of good digital citizenship). We continuously explore and reinforce the concept of digital footprints (digital identity) with our students--we certainly cannot dismiss that identity exits both digitally and on paper.
When you type something, it's so generic and doesn't have the creativity that it would by hand...
As a special education teacher, technology has empowered my students to express themselves in ways that handwriting never allowed. Due to poor dexterity, motor skills, legibility, and speed for their hand to keep up with their thoughts, handwriting held many of my students back from expressing their full identity. With the use of assistive technology, the work of these students is not "generic", but is full of heart and personality.
Through handwriting, teachers are more able to see students as individuals in the classroom...
This past week we had our first EC&I 832 class with Alec & Katia. In order to get to know us and connect with us, they asked that we leave a post on the Google+ community and create a Flipgrid video. I believe both of these introductions, albeit not handwritten, will definitely enable them to see us as the individuals we are.
By teaching children to write by hand, we are increasing their reading levels, their creativity, and their confidence...
In my opinion, I think education is still largely stuck in that "paper/pencil" mindset. I think a lot of teachers are still most comfortable with students submitting hand-written work. I'm not sure that we need to focus too much attention on "teaching" children to write by "hand"; I think we just have to focus on teaching students to "write" and unleash their creativity, in whatever form that may be.
Let's not lose what works...
This is an interesting statement coming from a BIC campaign. If we shouldn't lose what works, perhaps we shouldn't have mechanical pencils and fancy-coloured ink clicky-pens, because there were writing utensils before BIC's time that "worked". In all seriousness, we have to get comfortable with change. We can always revere the past, but without losing sight of the direction of the future.
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