Oregon students will be able to use spell check to pass state writing test
Published: Thursday, September 02, 2010, 12:17 PM Updated: Thursday, September 02, 2010, 12:28 PM
Oregon seventh-graders and high school students will now be able to use their computer's automated spelling checker when taking the state writing test, the Oregon Department of Education announced today.
The test asks students to write an essay in response to a prompt. Their writing is judged on six traits, including organization and sentence fluency. Conventions -- which includes spelling, capitalization and similar features which spell check can detect and fix -- is the single most important element in a student's score, with conventions score counted for twice as much as any other trait.
State officials announced today that spell check, which was disabled when students took the test in the past, should now be turned on.
Among the reasons for the change: "the increasing use of computers with spell checkers for communication in the work place, college, postsecondary training, and the military."
In other words, the rest of the world uses spell check; why shouldn't our students get to?
-- Betsy Hammond
Without spellcheck, we differentiate between spellers and nonspellers. That is helpful because spelling is associated with abilities to read, pay attention to detail, memorize, etc. All good things but it only separates the good from the not-so-good.
ReplyDeleteHere's the silver lining: Now Oregon students can use spellcheck. Given my experience grading lab reports, that does not mean that they will use spellcheck. The test will now allow us to identify the really stupid and lazy students. These students can then be directed towards additional remediation, hopefully in a Florida swamp where nobody will find their bodies.
Expect a lot of people to "defiantly" plan to improve. I am so tired "definitely" confusing spell-check in this way.
ReplyDeleteI'm definitely making my frosh read something on the Cupertino Effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cupertino_effect)
You mean like "inferred" spectroscopy?
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ReplyDeleteNoooooo.
ReplyDeleteIf I can use it, why can't they? In a digital world, I'm happy for my students to have all the technology they can get their hands on.
ReplyDeleteThis makes me mad. If we let machines fix their spelling and their grammar, what is it that they're learning? How to operate computers?
ReplyDeleteSpellcheck is hideously bad with grammar, not to mention typos that accidentally produce another word. And hell, if "conventions" are the highest part of the score, why on earth would you give them those on a silver platter?
ReplyDeleteWhatever. I learned to spell the old-fashioned way, with word families and roots and prefixes and so on. It's good for the brain, but American students don't need brains, do they, when they have machines? Tell that to the Indian and Asian countries whose graduates are wiping the floor with ours.
OK, wait. India and the Asian countries?
ReplyDeleteSpellcheck cannot solve for dimwittery, alas, my own or anyone else's.
This is like the earlier discussion of calculators. Just as you want your students to show they can perform all the basic and intermediate operations on their own before you let them use a calculator, so too I would think you would want them to show they can actually handle basic grammar and spelling on their own before you give them spellcheck. So it sort of defeats the purpose of the whole thing.
ReplyDeleteMore importantly, As April and Marcia pointed out, spellcheck is actually pretty stupid. I won't use it unless the computer I'm working on has my personal dictionary and exceptions loaded on to it. Among other things, Bill Gates doesn't recognize my name and keeps autochanging it to a famous superhero (no joke).
So my prediction would be that scores will either stay the same or drop (which would really rock) since kids think spellcheck means they don't have to proofread.
And Beaker, my friend, I have a nice patch of swampy ground where I've been disposing of the bodies for years now. Let me know if you need to borrow it.
I think this is a dumb idea... but... if a student fails the spelling portion of the test, even with this now being allowed... then you REALLY know they deserved to fail...
ReplyDeleteThis is doing the students a disservice. Not everything that they will write will be on a computer. Or is my college the only one that still expects exams to be handwritten in the ubiquitous blue booklets? We are not even allowed to have cell phones visible during exams, never mind computers of any sort.
ReplyDeleteKatie said: "If I can use it, why can't they? In a digital world, I'm happy for my students to have all the technology they can get their hands on."
ReplyDeleteKatie, spellcheck is fine in a digital world. I embrace the tech - I really, really, really do. I wish everyone in professional settings used these tools; it would save me the headache while reading their messages. That's another story completely...
Anyway, these kids are taking a test - they're not out in the "digital world" yet (as it pertains to the "real world"). Before they should be allowed to pollute the big world with their presence, they need to have some understanding of (or at least get a pinky's grip on) the mechanics of the English language.
The point is that this is a standardized test that is meant to gauge students' ability to write - including spelling and grammar. What really burns my ass is that the fucking grades are weighted on facets of writing that spell checker can correct... Why even bother with a test at all? At this point, it's just a waste of money. They might as well just sit the precious fucking darlings in a circle and talk about epic lolz or some other inane shit and then give them As because they shared.
This is the devolution of 'Merka™
Sad...
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ReplyDeleteI have a word for these kids. Post-literate.
ReplyDeleteI keep harping about how over-reliance on technology has been making us stupid. What did you expect, when you use machines to do all your thinking for you? This has been going on at least since the 1950s, with kids spending most of their lives watching TV. And before anyone yells, "Luddite," this comes from a user of Hubble Space Telescope who's been programming since 1975. Yes, I know Socrates worried about how writing would make rote memorization obsolete, but times have changed just a tad since the time of Socrates. Didn't any of you ever read "The Little Black Bag," or "The Marching Morons," or see the movie, "Idiocracy"? How about "High-Tech Heretic," by Clifford Stoll? He's another lover of computers who recognizes that too much of anything can't be good.
ReplyDeleteFroderick,
ReplyDeleteThis phenomenon has nothing to do with watching TV or using calculators or playing video games. It's about the wee bairn NOT reading, NOT learning arithmetic, and NOT learning how to spell everyday words or use a dictionary. Many highly intelligent people can do all six of those things well. In fact, learning to do all of them may have actually helped us become intelligent.
Next you'll tell us they can use calculators on their standardized math exams.
ReplyDeleteWait... what?
I think it's great that spellcheck is now aloud. This will let students focus more on there actual writing then spelling details. It's hard to guess yet what affect this will have, but I predict that it will help students assent to there true potential.
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ReplyDelete> This phenomenon has nothing to do with
ReplyDelete> watching TV or using calculators or
> playing video games.
Can't anyone come up with a better refutation to my observation than just, "No, they're not?" At minimum, all the time spent on electronic over-stimulation is time displaced from reading.
There may be more to it than that, too. Ever try to get a video-game addict to read something long and difficult? They simply won't have the attention span for it.
Also, listen up, all you people:
It's a spelling checker, not a spell checker!
I'm not sure what a spell checker is. It sounds to me like software used by witches, to check that they've cast the correct spells.
"I think it's great that spellcheck is now aloud [sic]. This will let students focus more on there [sic] actual writing then [sic] spelling details. It's hard to guess yet what affect [sic] this will have, but I predict that it will help students assent to there [sic] true potential."
ReplyDeleteAh, yes, the beauty of spell-checker...
It reminds me of something:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww