Write to learn

This is a subject near and dear to my heart.  I have been preaching this for 30 years - that the act of writing (and drawing) increases learning in a way that technology can't equal..  Will penmanship and cursive be taught again?

Complete article is available at Wall Street Journal online.

The Cleveland Browns' Strategy: Write This Down
Wall Street Journal, August 11, 2014  By Kevin Clark

Why Cleveland prefers pen and paper to technology; 'To write is to learn'

New coach Mike Pettine has the Browns truly taking notes. James Bennett

There is a technological revolution in the NFL this year. The Cleveland Browns knew this when they, like everyone else in the league, received tablet computers. Players on other teams raved about the ability to share typed notes and store everything they need on their machines.

The Browns got those. And then the coaching staff made sure to hand them something else: a pad of paper.

Armed with science and a little common sense, first-year Browns coach Mike Pettine is stressing to his players the old-school notion of writing things down. The strategy is backed up by new academic studies that say writing by hand instead of typing improves your chances of learning something.

"There's a powerful advantage to writing things down as opposed to typing," said Daniel Oppenheimer, a UCLA professor of marketing and psychology who, along with Princeton's Pam Mueller, wrote a paper this year titled "The Pen Is Mightier Than the Keyboard." The study found that, because the hand can't possibly keep up with the speaker's words, the writer must rephrase what was said in his or her own words, which in turn processes the information at a deeper level.