Quick Write: Differences between hand-writing and typing.

As computers begin to have bigger effects on a student's school experience, especially in high school, there is a big question about whether you should hand-write or type assignments. A lot of it depends on the teacher and the student, but the type of work being done also has an effect on whether you hand-write or type something. Which really is better, and will there be a time when you don't even need to bring paper to class anymore?
Hand-writing has been consistently used ever since writing was invented. You can't go more than an hour in school without needing to write something. That being said, however, hand-writing can be tedious, slow, and even quite sloppy sometimes. Writing long essays or reports is quite frustrating when you're writing. Your hand cramps up and you spend almost three times as much time hand-writing instead of typing. If you have bad penmanship, you might also not flourish in a class. There are occasions, however, when teachers prefer hand-writing. For example, if a teacher is nervous about plagiarism or copying, they may request that a student hand-write something. Short assignments are much quicker to write by hand. It takes time to get a computer out an open a document up, the print it out. If you have to write less than a page, it is much easier to write by hand. Some things are also much more difficult to type up. Writing scientific papers with chemical or math equations that include weird symbols and sub/superscripts. While it is much neater on a computer, it takes much longer and is much more inefficient. That being said, I prefer to type whenever possible because I am a quick typer and can usually do assignments much faster.
I'm not trying to say that there aren't any benefits to typing, however. On the surface, typing is WAY faster. It it much easier to write/erase words, requiring simply hitting a key. Long, lengthy essays take a fraction of the time. Words are also much smaller and neater. Your penmanship has no effect on what something typed looks like, to nobody can complain about bad writing. Computer letters are also much smaller, so you can fit much more writing into one page, saving paper and eventually saving the planet!
Obviously since I'm writing this on the computer, you can see which side I am on. Computers are the future and integrating them into schools more and more makes learning, cheaper, more efficient, and much easier. Fun Fact: Many universities are making their books available on programs for iPad, iTouch so students can save money and not have to pack books around. Since freshman already are getting laptops, I think there will be a time in the near future where either iPads or computers completely replace textbooks. Overall, it's easier, faster, cleaner, and much more organized to type than to hand-write.