Five Times Each

During my conversations with high school students who are considering teaching careers, I asked them to look at digital products and reflect on the value that technology added to the work.  Repeatedly, I had students tell me that the student whose work I was displaying would have learned more by doing a handwritten product because students remember what they write by hand.  This was stated with absolute certainty.   I believe I cracked a joke that I must not be learning anything these days because I never write anything by hand anymore.  But it was repeated just as adamantly in each session.  It makes me wonder a couple of things.  When students use computers are they only copying and pasting?  If we change the kind of work they do and our expectations for their writing so that their writing actually involved thought, then surely that would change the perception on the students on the value of digital writing.  And it isn't that I hate writing by hand but it makes me think of old spelling homework and copying my spelling words 5 times each...or my chemistry teacher who made us do complicated outlines of our chapters...or my government teacher who would read off his notes while we would dutifully copy every word that came out of his mouth.  None of these examples are stellar memories of learning for me. I remember them more as moments of torturous boredom.  Would technology have added value to these learning scenarios?  Not at all.  Is there something about the brain that connects memory with  the hand movement of holding a pen to paper and writing.  I don't know.  I do know that I didn't learn any chemistry and the government I learned didn't come from my great note taking skills.