One of my fears I had as a classroom teacher was always centered around misspelling words when I wrote them on the whiteboard.  I remember one time when I hurriedly tried writing out the word “assignment” but switched around the “g” and the “n” (you should be able to tell what I wrote).  This was a big issue since I taught science courses and we tend to have a lot of large and complex words in science.

This was a big reason why I ended using Google Slides so often because it allowed me to write out my words ahead of time and have that great red line show up when I made mistakes, which was and still is, quite often.  That red line allowed me to focus more on what I wanted to write instead of what the correct spelling was, it freed up a part of my mind to better focus on my task and to focus less on the stress.

The same can be said for so many of our students who have stress they have to write something by hand as I am sure there are many who make mistakes.  That stress from being afraid of misspelling words can distract them from what they are trying to do and can lessen what they can accomplish.  Allowing students the chance to write it out digitally instead of by hand has many benefits, but reducing the stress of those who have spelling issues (and maybe handwriting issues in general) can allow them to better focus on what they have to say instead of whether the “i” or “e” comes first.

I have heard that many say that we are becoming lazy because of spell check but yet we live in a world where we have spell check in every tool imaginable.  With other great tools like word prediction or built in dictionaries, we can help many students become better writers just by using these digital tools.  Help the students focus on what they want to say by using the digital tools built into almost every word processing tool out there.  We have the ability to use digital tools to reduce the barriers that are keeping some students from being as successful as they can.

#MakeLearningAccessibleForAll