TRUEKING RIGHT Joe Rigo Computers really may help people write better. They provide motivation, and they make the whole job easier. At least, that was the word from Fred Hechinger, formerly the education writer for the New York Times. He and several public school teachers reported their ~xpe~i~nces at a meeting in New York in March. Hechinger said newspaper reporters have adapted to using computer terminals instead of paper pads and typewriters. Some resisted at first, he said, but now they even type their notes onto the screen while talking on the telephone. Mainly, he said, the computer makes it easier to rewrite. The reporters can fix their spelling and grammar, replace a paragraph, or move text around without a lot of work. Hechinger thinks the same idea will appeal to school children. Teachers put a lot of emphasis on making it neat, he said. They want words spelled correctly, and they want the grammar right. "Writing a page becomes a long ai~d onorous task," he said. "Once you get it right, you leave it alone. Never mind what it says." Hechinger told the group that it can be a traumatic experience for a child to have a fresh idea in the middle of an essay. The child does not want to go back to redo anything that has already been done. With computer facilities, the child does not have to worry so much about neatness. It is easy to fix spelling and grammar problems. And the fresh idea may be inserted anyplace without having to rewrite the whole page. In grade school. Hechinger noted, kids write single spaced on both sides of the page. They can't waste paper. And if they want to change anything, they have to copy the whole thing over. Computers can free them to think more about what they are writing. Several teachers at their meeting volupteered their own experiences with fourth graders. One said that programming courses are helping to improve spelling. Children have a reason to learn how to spell correctly. If the word isn't right, the program won't work. Another teacher reported that her kids still prefer words to numbers. She gave them a chance to key either a word or a number. They could type either '2' or 'truck'. Most chose to spell out the word rather than take the shortcut. All of this discussion was at the March meeting of the Computers in Schools Project. The project is sponsored by the local ACM chapter and the New York Academy of Sciences. It is for grade school teachers who are interested in using computers in any part of the educational process. For more information about the project, contact Hal Lamster, NYC/ACM, P.O. Box 245, New York, NY 10163.
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Trucking right
Rigo, Joe
Follow ACM SIGDOC Asterisk Journal of Computer Documentation
, Volume 7 (3)
Association for Computing Machinery – May 1, 1981
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