I have been receiving essays numbering in the tens, for corrections and feedback before they are posted on them web. I was reading through them and saw that some of the shortcomings were very common or were across the board. So I just thought I'd make up a list and have these little check boxes that they could go through before they are posted, and may be that will help them to improve their writing. May be you could suggest some tips too.
One of the most disturbing things I found when going through these essays was that many were using the spell checker and the grammar correction option, but they were simply doing it in a blind fashion. What ever the word or phrase that was suggested first was used to replace the mistake. I remembered what one of my colleagues said when asked about the "One laptop per child program", he said "If I give my son a calculator he will learn to use it to add and subtract and multiply, but will he learn adding, subtracting or multiplying? I don't think so. It is not about giving a laptop to a child, but how it is used to learn". Similarly these little bloggers and many others don't use the spell checker and the grammar correction option as a learning too, they simply use it to correct mistakes and they keep on repeating the same mistake over and over again. In an instance when they do not have access to a computer and need to write something, they are going to be in deep trouble.
So hope that the people who donate computers and conduct programs also point out the importance of using them as tools of learning rather than just tools for doing tasks.
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