Yesterday, Google unveiled Google Scribe. It sort of tries to get in “your head” and offers suggestions of what it thinks you want to write next based on what you are writing now.
I’m trying to figure out if it could be a helpful tool, or one that’s not very useful, for English Language Learners.
I think the grammar and spell check on Word and other word processing programs is a huge help — but only after ELL’s have first tried writing a draft longhand. If they don’t do that, I think they can get too focused on writing correctly.
I’m thinking something like Google Scribe could potentially be useful in building vocabulary, and expanding familiarity with grammatical concepts. But I’m concerned that the final product might not really be a true creation of the learner. And that they could really used it as a big-time crutch that they would not really be able to apply to situations where Google Scribe wasn’t available. What would their writing be, as opposed to Google Scribe’s creation?
So I’m leaning towards the negative side.
What do you think?
I played it for a while.My feeling is that it saves time for typing by just clicking a number button when you find the word you want.I doubt it could be helpful for a beginning language learner or it could be helpful to avoid wrong spelling.I just reminds me of texting in a Chinese cellphone.There are always characters and pharses associated pop up and all you do is to select the ones you want to use.
I saw this only today (Google’s Scribe tool) – our teachers need to create report card comments and feedback and I was leaning towards suggesting this to them as a useful tool to help ‘nudge’ them towards writing more comments with correct grammar (our teachers have English as a Second Language themselves).
Either way – I think used at least partially – I can see it as a valuable resource.
Just my 2c worth!
Google Scribe should only be used by people know English and grammar well. Even by these people it should be used sparingly. We all want to be able to use the old school methods of communication, right?
Sorry!! I forgot the word “who”.
As a tool which will ultimately save me time from repeatedly correcting the teachers’ grammar in written comments prior to the comments going out to parents… Google Scribe might prove to be very useful (even if used sparingly).
From an EAL student perspective (again – used sparingly) – this could be a fun tool which will allow those students (largely Hindi speaking/writing) who are afraid of making mistakes in their English to experiment with the language – something which I actively encourage in my own students.
I think it might be quite fun to use in a teaching situation: show a picture or video clip and get students to write a passage with the help of Google Scribe. I’m undecided as to whether there is danger of it becoming a crutch. You have to understand the options to be able to write an intelligible sentence. I’m going to try it out with students.