Secondary Schools in my area have computers in ONE class. It is required, but only for a semester and they do not teach them very much. They learn more from their friends and phones. As for Primary education, even some of the TEACHERS do not have computers (although they are REQUIRED to access and use the online state education resources). As for teaching elementary students writing, why is the assumption that these children have no parents? I learned more about cursive and correct writing structure from my grandparents, and more about proper use of English form my Grandparents! And I started school in the 1950s!!

Education does not happen in a computer. Education happens in the human brain, and only if you feed it all it needs and wants to be ready to learn. It does not stop when there is no teacher around. If someone around you wants to learn ANYTHING, feed the brain!

There are disadvantages to putting a lot of emphasis on writing. I had a younger work colleague who was left handed and never learned to write properly, despite being put in remedial classes several times. All he could ever produce was a kind of jerky lower-case printing, not joined up. It looked like the track of a spider that had fallen into an inkwell.

In an earlier age he would never have been given a job as a civil servant, but fortunately we were fully computerised by then and he had no problems using a keyboard. He helped me design the inter-library loans database.

Diversity and ..
a) a child dont want to scratch an ipad.. let making him arts and painting
b) a child cannot write (disfunction).. let him pushing keys (he can become an outstanding scientist)
c) a child is interested in painting on an ipad.. let keep him doing it
.. = creating standards in tools in education is unrespectfull for the children
.. = every children is an angel given by God to some adults (quite a lot of time a male and a female; can be different in the modern time like 2 female or 2 males) and we should treat him as an angel. NOBODY has the right to mistreat an angel. NOBODY has the right to force an angel. Only the right to guide him and make him learning the norms for surviving in that human dangerous world.
(even if they turn to a small devil like me.. haha).

The value in developing hand-eye coordination at both short and longer ranges is invaluable to proper development of the human brain. Writing, or at least printing, also aids the coordinated development of higher language skills.

Education is not just for employment, it is to complete the development of a functional human being. Over reliance on technology hinders that development. In fact, over reliance on any single "system" fad is less than optimal. Humans are not machines, and do not learn in logical (or even reasonable) ways and are often not only wildly different from each other, but wildly different form one month to the next.

It seems likely that there is a better way than the traditional "throw everything at them in bits and gobs with restructuring and repetition and see what sticks", but so far nothing seems better for all students all of the time.

Certainly systems designed more by political fads than by educational research have done more damage than good!

And many electronic devices seriously interfere with that on so many levels.
Both in finer motoric skills and children's general need to just move around - by giving them the illusion of moving around in a game world.
For preschool children all this is poison, and it doesn't start being helpful the moment they start school.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not opposed to children using electronic devices in education or otherwise, but supervised and in small amounts (of time) and not in the way I've seen it done over and over.

Coordination isn't everything. I was always clumsy, bad at games and my handwriting was lousy too. It wasn't the result of staring at screens (we're talking about the 1950s) but of spending every spare moment with my nose in a book. Should we perhaps discourage young children from reading?

Penmanship!
The beautiful art of writing. No one teaches it any longer. I would love and enjoy reading and sending such personal expressions of one's thoughts. Back in the early 80's there was the trend toward Calligraphy and since then it's mostly forgotten.

Take care and enjoy the natural world!

Japanese still have the sense to keep this alive.
Writing can be beautifull.
The feeling and touching a pen in the hand, make a direct contact between the skin at the finger and the brain. This is a brain massage.

I found this thread a little late and by chance.

The main risk of concentrating on typing as opposed to writing by hand is the dependency. You need stuff and must be certain that some people are working somewhere and insure that what you type will serve a purpose. If not, than you cannot, you will not and what you do is a waste of time.

Take a pen and if you do not have one, there are about a dozen other ways in which “writing” can be accomplished. I do not claim that clay-tablets where worth an effort. But I *know* that in some situation they will work and Google won't.

Give people a chance, at least.

Sometimes I wish to see how a world-wide week-long power-cut will change behaviours.

Studies indicate that handwriting skills development contribute to mental development, fine motor skills, and as a diagnostic indicator of other development issues. http://[https://www.weareteachers.co...ould-teach-it/ is an example of one article that references such studies. There are others more recent, but I have not the links on hand at this time.

The important point is that learning both cursive and printing do matter, and have educational and developmental advantages. As do the development of artistic and musical skills

I was offline for a year and during that time almost lost my ability to write. If I tried to write an email it took me hours to finish and that's not saying it was well formed or spelled correctly.

I've regained that ability since I got back online in January and started posting again, but it's just to set me up to bring me down.

There were no computer classes when I was in school. I never sat in front of a keyboard till I first used a computer in 93.

English and science were all that interested me in school. They weren't teaching me anything so I quit in 10th Grade. Took the GED Test cold when I was 32 and was second highest score at that site that year.

I had top score all year and some 15 year old kid that was dying of cancer and wanted his High School Diploma before he died beat me at the very last minute. He never sat in a classroom seat either and didn't make the Ceremony, so I could hardly complain.

The GED never did anything for me. I've read my 1995 Websters Dictionary since and gave myself a massive upgrade when I got online

I only noticed this, but it seems that most folks underestimate the ability of kids to learn.

To learn handwriting first, I feel is best. Keyboards and ipads, etc can be picked up later. To build up their attention span and concentration is next. Left handed kids should not be discouraged, but bought a fountain pen asap. They need to write with the page turned 90º clockwise, and then the letters can be made flow naturally. Once they get thr trick with the fountain pen, it can be dispensed with. My elder brother worked this out for himself, but it took him years. If they develop a good attention span everything else follows. Computers and internet are like rust to the attention span, and kids will be nothing without being able to spend hours concentrating.

Also long term hobbies are helpful - their own shelf in the greenhouse; being drafted and trained during cooking, their opinion sought on spice combinations, etc. I did that for mine, and they are all better cooks than me.

An interesting factual observation on the results of computer use in schools:
https://www.oecd.org/education/new-a...in-schools.htm
On the value of handwriting,
https://www.weareteachers.com/7-reas...ould-teach-it/

Different thing. I wrote this in May, this year:
Handwritten Web-Pages. This is extreme and needs some enthusiasm (short of madness).

My dad was probably also left-handed and was "forced" to learn how to write "properly," which he eventually did – becoming ambidextrous. I'm left-handed and I simply learned to write that way. No, I never used "left-handed scissors."

When I was in school, using a calculator on math homework was cheating. This taught you how to check your own work without assistance. I once saw a person at work who'd added up a column of figures in a spreadsheet and at a glance I knew that the "total" was incorrect. I told him to check his formula – which he did. He was impressed that I "saw" the mistake.