The entire reason kids and adults should write in plaintext is in order to focus on the content of their message.
Markdown is excellent because it prevents the writer from formatting except where that has semantic meaning (headers, lists, etc).
I’m teaching my son (14) how to use the best tools: The first assignment I gave him was to write a short essay in markdown, using vscode, and commit and push the answer in a pull request on github. I can do a code review, pointing out changes or even add my own content in a commit of my own.
These are powerful tools that everyone should be learning for writing intellectual content. The diff tools and being able to navigate change history lead to improved quality. In the same way that git gives me confidence to delete bad code, when writing an essay, I can delete low quality content. While rewriting I can see the diff changes for reference.
Of course, once you are ready to “deploy”, you will have a suitable style transformation so that the final result is a perfectly formatted document (with emphasis on excellent content).
Solution: replace MLA requirements with an HTML form that accepts plain text. Teach students how to click the BibTeX link on Google Scholar, and how copy/paste works. Now they can submit their papers and citations.
Markdown is excellent because it prevents the writer from formatting except where that has semantic meaning (headers, lists, etc).
I’m teaching my son (14) how to use the best tools: The first assignment I gave him was to write a short essay in markdown, using vscode, and commit and push the answer in a pull request on github. I can do a code review, pointing out changes or even add my own content in a commit of my own.
These are powerful tools that everyone should be learning for writing intellectual content. The diff tools and being able to navigate change history lead to improved quality. In the same way that git gives me confidence to delete bad code, when writing an essay, I can delete low quality content. While rewriting I can see the diff changes for reference.
Of course, once you are ready to “deploy”, you will have a suitable style transformation so that the final result is a perfectly formatted document (with emphasis on excellent content).