Essays.

Last semester, for my final exam in my 'Multiliteracies across the Curriculum', we had to write three essays in 80 minutes - today, in 'Philosophy of Education' class, we had to write four in the same 80 minutes for the midterm.

When I was little, I never learned to properly hold a pencil. It hasn't been a huge problem - I hold it fairly well. Hell, I'm an above-average drawer. But since I'm an educator, and, you know, it's not the 1970's, can't we move on to computers already? When I was young I watched The Jetsons, and imagined a world where everything would be done for us: we'd all get around in flying cars and we would be moved around on land by conveyor belts. But we're still using pencils. True, we haven't moved beyond the pencil - yet. There still nothing cheaper and as easy - but honestly, in today's education system, we ought to allow alternatives - in the form of the medium we allow students to transfer knowledge in - even in regulated exams, whether that be orally, using computers, or written-in-pen essays. I can type faster than I can write, and so can most of the emerging generation.