Indiana schools to end handwriting?

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Indiana schools to end handwriting?

Postby KLA2 » Thu Jul 07, 2011 2:07 am

This is just SO wrong. :cry:

http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/07/06/typ ... ?hpt=hp_c2

Part of the reason we are the dominant species on this planet, perhaps the universe, is our ability to pass on complex technical knowlege.

Writing, whether on cave walls, clay tablets, vellum, parchment, or paper, is essential to this.

These media have lasted thousands of years.

How many 5 1/4 inch floppies can you still read? When all information is stored in "The Cloud", how easy will it be for the authority of the day to do a "search and replace" to world data?

Paranoid? You bet. It has been tried before, but is harder to do with paper.
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Postby Enzo » Thu Jul 07, 2011 8:42 am

I was thinking the other day about what college must be like these days. I have not been in a university classroom in decades. I used to take copious notes, then go home and organize and transcribe them. In so doing it solidified it in my head.

I assume today the lecture hall is a sea of lap tops and all through the lectures there are 200 sets of fingers chattering away at keyboards. The sound must be like a family reunion at a beaver dam. Or perhaps I am wrong.

I wondered how I could take notes typing. How do I write a little tangent then draw an arrow back up the page to relate it to something else? Footnotes on the fly? How do I make the little charts and matrices I like to draw?

Kids still graduate, so it must be possible...
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Re: Indiana schools to end handwriting?

Postby tubeswell » Thu Jul 07, 2011 4:02 pm



Yup. Bad move. Probably sponsored by IT industry heavyweights who are plotting to get the franchise on literacy once their media becomes the only form of communication known to humanity, so that everyone who wants to write or learn to write will have to pay copyright fees (alongside other fees) with every keystroke.
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Postby KLA2 » Fri Jul 08, 2011 1:54 am

Now this ... to the the CNN Quick Vote poll asking "Do you ever write in cursive", the percentage out of 141,737 responces saying "No" was ...

[spoiler]33%[/spoiler]

I ... am ... stunned. :o
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Postby wring » Fri Jul 08, 2011 2:38 am

I only write on paper when I have to. I've taken notes on a laptop, transcribe it later, used to have to take meeting notes on paper, it was tough- my handwriting is really bad.
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Postby Enzo » Fri Jul 08, 2011 2:51 am

Your handwriting is harder to interpret than Mayan.
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Postby wring » Fri Jul 08, 2011 3:32 am

as if yours is any better.
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Postby KLA2 » Sat Jul 09, 2011 2:34 am

wring wrote:I only write on paper when I have to. I've taken notes on a laptop, transcribe it later, used to have to take meeting notes on paper, it was tough- my handwriting is really bad.


Yes, but there is an important difference between not wanting to, and not being able to. :(
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Postby tubeswell » Sat Jul 09, 2011 3:01 am

I'm not too concerned. The new generation of cyber-troglodytes who can only draw stick people, means that the highly-paid jobs requiring basic literacy and numeracy skills will become the preserve of the elite who can afford to send their children to places where writin', readin' and 'rithmetic is still taught. Therefore the prosperity of my own offspring, who have all been taught to write by hand, is assured.
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Postby Arneb » Sat Jul 09, 2011 11:38 am

The German Federal State (and city) of Hamburg will abolish cursive as of the next school year starting September. However, the pupils will still learn to write by hand: The letters they learn won't have the ligatures and flourishes of the cursive letters - they will look a lot like print letters in order to speed up learning. I remember struggling terribly with the little drawings those cursive letters were compared to their print counterparts.
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Postby Мастер » Sat Jul 09, 2011 1:37 pm

Arneb wrote:The German Federal State (and city) of Hamburg will abolish cursive as of the next school year starting September. However, the pupils will still learn to write by hand: The letters they learn won't have the ligatures and flourishes of the cursive letters - they will look a lot like print letters in order to speed up learning. I remember struggling terribly with the little drawings those cursive letters were compared to their print counterparts.


Hey, try Russian cursive :P
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Postby KLA2 » Sun Jul 10, 2011 2:32 am

KLA2 wrote:Fascinating, since the whole purpose of cursive is to speed up handwriting. It is really a sloppy, lazy but flowing and quick method of writing. :?

Huh. :?


I know. Maybe the German cursive letters are just not particularly conducive to that aim. And although my handwriting is borderline legible (I've seen worse) if I don't dicipline myself strictly, Speed and ease got better with the years.

Russian cursive, yes, looks beautiful. We have a Russian colleague here whose German cursive looks like Russian cursive. :shock:
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Postby Halcyon Dayz, FCD » Sun Jul 10, 2011 6:48 am

Most people just don't have it in them to write and fast and legible at the same time.
For that we use computers now.

Humans should come with inkjets in a fingertip.
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Postby Мастер » Sun Jul 10, 2011 7:03 am

Halcyon Dayz, FCD wrote:Humans should come with inkjets in a fingertip.


Coming soon :P
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Postby Enzo » Tue Jul 12, 2011 3:11 am

Oh I remember Russian cursive. Seemed like half the lower case letters came out looking like a string of "mu"s.
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