Mobile Workers Take Note Of Tablets' Handwriting Skills

Did you know that cursive has been dropped from the Common Core Curriculum Standards shared by all U.S. states? Yet handwriting is still the fastest way to write in this digital – or should I say mobile computing – age. And, despite being the most efficient way to capture data in long or short form, cursive has been replaced by typing – at least in mandatory school lessons. Sure, kids still have to be able to print. But for those of us old enough to remember the hours spent in front of lined paper perfecting our up and down strokes, there’s a reason cursive was etched in our brains and pens were glued to our hands for our most important assignments. Even for those tedious, data-heavy 10+ page reports.

So it’s both a little shocking and disappointing to me that our future workforce isn’t being encouraged to master such a valuable skill, especially considering that today’s mobile computing technology hasn’t actually made handwriting skills obsolete. In fact, I’d argue that the advanced touch capabilities, active digitizer pens and often paper-sized screens of today’s tablet PCs have made handwriting even more relevant for the “walking while working” crowd of today’s top global industries.