spell checking in activities (was Re: xo activity idea)
Yifan [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I had an idea for an activity, something like a write activity with a constantly updating spell checker that displayed spelling suggestions as you typed Which raises the question: What happened to the spell checking that used to be in the Write and Browse activities? Trac bugs 5394 and 6099 suggest Write and Browse used to spell check but did not have a context menu for alternatives. Now on my XO running 8.2.0 neither highlights mis-spelled words. Is it intentional the feature went away in both? The only spell checking application on my 8.2.0 XO is Firefox, using its own local en-US dictionaries and a personal dictionary in ~/isolation/blah/.mozilla. I believe the underlying libraries for all three activities use the same Hunspell engine and could share a common dictionary (Trac 6104). Bastien wrote: When designing a spell-checker, we should keep in mind that the spell-checker should always suggest correct spellings, and never underline errors. I disagree. I think the standard red dots spell checking that AbiWord and Firefox do is extremely useful. Regards, -- =S Page ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: spell checking in activities
S Page [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Bastien wrote: When designing a spell-checker, we should keep in mind that the spell-checker should always suggest correct spellings, and never underline errors. I disagree. I think the standard red dots spell checking that AbiWord and Firefox do is extremely useful. It might seem extremely useful for adults who already know how to spell words, who only do typos. But it is misleading for children who *learn* how to spell; it exposes their memory do the wrong spelling. If you're interested, I will try to provide pointers to some cognitive researches. Regards, -- Bastien ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: spell checking in activities
Please provide the pointers if you would be so kind. I don't think spell checkers of either type are likely to be used for early writers. When young children are taught to write (when learning to write and read) in US classrooms, they are encouraged not to obsess over the spelling of each word. Rather they are concentrating on writing their ideas, making compositions that have good structure and descriptions, using sight words and other words they already know and sounding out words they don't know and writing these phonetic creative spellings. Gradually more and more correct spellings are taught as their literacy improves. English has too many words that don't follow rules, so if writing were deferred until spelling of each word could be perfect, young children would not be able to write substantive compositions until later grades. No doubt other languages are taught differently. I think a spell checker would be counterproductive in an early literacy context because when spell checkers offer alternative words the misspelling needs to be close to the correct word. I suggest that the OLPC educational consultants be queried as to their advice about the best form for a spell checker. On Sat, Dec 6, 2008 at 2:46 AM, Bastien [EMAIL PROTECTED]wrote: S Page [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Bastien wrote: When designing a spell-checker, we should keep in mind that the spell-checker should always suggest correct spellings, and never underline errors. I disagree. I think the standard red dots spell checking that AbiWord and Firefox do is extremely useful. It might seem extremely useful for adults who already know how to spell words, who only do typos. But it is misleading for children who *learn* how to spell; it exposes their memory do the wrong spelling. If you're interested, I will try to provide pointers to some cognitive researches. Regards, -- Bastien ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel -- Don't think for a minute that power concedes. We have to work like our future depends on it. -- Barack Obama ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: spell checking in activities
Hi Carol, Carol Farlow Lerche [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Please provide the pointers if you would be so kind. Will do, when I have it! English has too many words that don't follow rules, so if writing were deferred until spelling of each word could be perfect, young children would not be able to write substantive compositions until later grades. No doubt other languages are taught differently. Spell-checking is just a possible feature of a software. I expect such a feature will only be useful for certain teaching contexts and methods. For a given context in which we assume that the feature is relevant, there are good and bad implementations. For example, in order to teach the correct spellings of words to a kid, I think MS-like spell-checkers are bad. As an alternative, I suggest to use a very minimalistic spell-checker, which will automatically replace typos by the correct spelling when the replacement is 99% predictable. Or something along this idea. (I'm not arguing on how writing should be taught...) -- Bastien ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
