4.1177 Writing Anecdotes (was Technophobia and Writing (2/42)
Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Tue, 26 Mar 91 00:25:35 EST
Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 4, No. 1177. Tuesday, 26 Mar 1991.
(1) Date: Wed, 20 Mar 91 22:38:21 EST (25 lines)
From: david j reimer f <dreimer4@mach1.wlu.ca>
Subject: Technophobia and kids' computing
(2) Date: Thu, 21 Mar 91 08:29 EDT (17 lines)
From: "Leslie Z. Morgan" <MORGAN@LOYVAX>
Subject: RE: 4.1168 Technophobia and Writing
(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 91 22:38:21 EST
From: david j reimer f <dreimer4@mach1.wlu.ca>
Subject: Technophobia and kids' computing
In the wake of Willard McCarty's report of an article from TLS, we have
again been taking up the theme of computers and writing skills. One
posting posed the question of kids forgetting how to handwrite (perhaps
as calculators have discouraged the learning of sums -- or have they?
:-)
An anecdote. Just this afternoon I downloaded a shareware program called
KIDSWP. "Kids' Word Processor". In the lull before dinner I showed it
to my little girl. She was as excited as could be! (And this was no
fancy graphics "game"!) She set herself up a file, and worked hard at
typing every word she knows how to spell. This did not take long.
(She's four.) Her name, then: cat men zoo me mom dad and. Then she
printed it out. She was higher than a kite. Ran upstairs to show
Mom...ran back down, sat on top of the desk, then proceeded to
transcribe with pencil and paper each word she had typed, checking them
off as she went.
At least in this one instance, the flush of high-tech success didn't
lead to the deadening of manual skills!
Cheers,
David Reimer, Wilfrid Laurier University
dreimer4@mach1.wlu.ca
(2) --------------------------------------------------------------19----
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 91 08:29 EDT
From: "Leslie Z. Morgan" <MORGAN@LOYVAX>
Subject: RE: 4.1168 Technophobia and Writing
There are two bits of trivia related to not writing/spelling and
composition which might be of interest:
1. some (not academic) jobs now require a hand-written letter of
application (written on-site) instead of, or following, the word-
processed application. This has been happening recently; as far
as I can tell, it is to see whether the person can in fact spell
and write without machines!
2. An older colleague has said that the advent of the word-processor
has made him more wordy- perhaps because of multiple revisions more
easily done or whatever.
Leslie Morgan
MORGAN@LOYVAX1