Category Archives: composing on electronic equipment

Are autocorrect software features a help or a hindrance to learning?

Posted on April 10, 2025 | Leave a comment

When I work with student writers online, they make spelling mistakes, verb tense and number mistakes, and punctuation mistakes.  When they do, a squiggly underline alerts students that they have made an error.  What almost always happens next is that the student clicks on the error, notices a correction suggested by the software, and clicks on that suggestion, replacing the error with the suggested correction.  The student rarely tries to figure out what the error is, and rarely tries to figure out if the offered solution is correct.

AI to the rescue.

But is this a good idea? Using AI this way offers many benefits.

  • Students can correct errors immediately. No trying to figure out what is wrong and no trying to figure out how to correct it.
  • Student writers become more efficient, spending their time thinking about content rather than grammar or spelling.
  • The correction software is free, embedded in the Word or Google Doc software. No need to subscribe to Grammarly or Microsoft Editor.
  • Dyslexic students and others can work independently with confidence that their writing is error-free, or almost.

Using AI also offers drawbacks.

  • Students do not improve their spelling, use of apostrophes, or subject-verb agreement. There is no incentive to improve if the software can do it all.
  • Sometimes the software makes mistakes such as when the student writes slang, acronyms or abbreviations. It can’t detect homophones and might leave as uncorrected this sentence:  The bare walked in the backyard.
  • If the student’s spelling is way off, the software might not be able to tell what the student means and might not detect an error or know how to fix it.
  • Students can become over-reliant on autocorrect software. If they are tested by writing on notebook paper, their work is full of common mistakes.
  • Specialist words not commonly used in everyday writing might not be recognized by the autocorrect software.

The corrections can be turned off easily, but none of the students I work with do that.  They depend on the autocorrect feature—some because English is their second language and some because their teachers have not focused on spelling and grammar.

What’s a teacher to do?  Allow or not allow autocorrect?

I have decided to allow it for the reasons noted above.  Using it saves time and allows me to focus on composition rather than spelling and grammar.  If I see a student making the same error over and over, I will draw his or her attention to it, and we might have a lesson on it.

Many of my students’ parents disagree.  They want me to focus on spelling and grammar during the rough draft stage of writing.  I used to explain that doing this interrupts the flow of ideas.  Now I don’t need to explain because students make corrections with the click of a mouse long before their parents see their errors.

In their adult lives, students will be working on computers, tablets or other electronic devices with built-in autocorrections.  Using autocorrections will be as normal as using microwave ovens.  Schools should prepare students for the real world of tomorrow, not for the world of their grandparents.

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Posted in AI or artificial intelligence, autocorrections on electronic equipment, composing on electronic equipment, teaching with technology

Writing “keyboards” of the near future

Posted on October 22, 2018 | Leave a comment

I learned to print capital letters in kindergarten and lower case letters in first grade.  I learned to write cursive in third grade.  In high school I learned to type—QWERTY—on a manual typewriter and on an electric, reaching 55 wpm.  Later I learned to use a keyboard, then an ergonomically curved keyboard, then a touch pad, a stylus, and most recently, an iPhone touch screen.

But soon I might be writing the great American novel on one of these:

A thin, almost see-through key pad to which a device (about the size of a pack of cigarettes) sends lasers which pick up the movement of fingers and sends signals to an electronic device, such as an iPad.  It’s available now for $119.99 from Brookstone.

If you find keying into phone’s tiny keyboards hard, you could attach a strap over each hand and type on any surface you want, with or without a keyboard.  Air Type detects the movements of your fingers and turns them into electronic signals to your phone or other device.

Then there is the roll up keyboard called the Qii which rolls to the size of a roll of coins.  Via Bluetooth it connects to your electronic device.

The Celluon Magic Cube projects a laser onto a flat surface creating a virtual full-size keyboard which connects to electronic devices via Bluetooth.

All of these keyboards use the QWERTY arrangement of letters.  But what if you want a different arrangement?  Then you can use the Puzzle Keyboard which enables you to connect letters in almost any arrangement you like.

For people with physical disabilities there is the one-handed keyboard, a roundish mouse-like device with several buttons.  Pressing various combinations of buttons creates various letters and punctuation.

If you like the look and feel of an old-fashioned typewriter, you could get Qwerkywriter, a keyboard which looks like a 1950’s era typewriter.  It uses Bluetooth to connect to electronic devices.

One odd-looking innovation already available is a one-handed wearable keyboard called Tap made by Tap Systems.  While wearing rubbery finger bracelets, tap your index finger and get an “E.”  Tap two fingers together and get other letters.  Tapping the middle finger and the pinky produces a “Z.”

Another innovation is Leap Motion’s digital menu which can attach to the palm of one hand, allowing you to tap on it with your other hand.  The signals are picked up by an electronic device.

On the horizon are vision controlled devices which would allow you to stare at particular letters, inputting those letters into an electronic device.

Perhaps most futuristic is the technology of Openwater, which is figuring out how to track your thought waves.  Think “water” and w-a-t-e-r appears on your electronic device.

Cursive has been eliminated, and from what I see, so has keyboard instruction. Maybe in a few years we will need no pens, keyboards or smart phones.  Instead maybe we’ll send messages one brain to the next with no intermediary technology?

But will the writing be any better?

 

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Posted in composing on electronic equipment, keyboards

Should you write on electronic equipment or by hand?

Posted on November 19, 2017 | Leave a comment

If you have a choice to compose either on a laptop or a tablet, or to hand write, use electronic equipment.  It has many advantages. 

You can erase and rewrite easily. Even if you are lazy, you will erase and make changes more than if you are handwriting.

You can cut and paste easily, moving sentences around to create better flow. On paper you can do that too, drawing arrows or actually cutting your paper with a scissors and taping it together in a different order, but face it, you probably won’t.

You know immediately if a word is misspelled and with one click, you know how to correct it. No paging through a dictionary.

You know immediately if you have a grammar problem although you might not recognize what the problem is. But at least you know something is wrong.  When you write on paper, you don’t know you made a mistake.

You can read what you are writing. If your handwriting is poor, or if you forget to skip lines, reading handwritten drafts is difficult.

With electronic equipment you are more likely to revise because you can see what you are doing and you don’t create a mes

Once you know how to type or keystroke, writing on electronic equipment goes faster than handwriting does.

Your work looks professional. You can be proud not only of the content but of its appearance.

Your writing will improve.

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Posted in composing on electronic equipment, writing tips