I discovered a new trick yesterday while working on my OU assignment with the iPad on the desk. You can’t yet say “Hey Siri, please write my assignment for me” (and nor would that give the learning benefit that comes from wrestling with thinking and thinking about how to express it). However, you can ask, “Hey Siri, calculate X + Y”, where X and Y are word counts for subsections of a question.

In previous assignments, I have done this check either mentally or by breaking out a calculator (application or web-based) to type in the numbers. Now, if my brain is fatigued, I can beat the speed of switching away from the document and typing the calculation in. In the grand scheme of things, it is only a minor discovery and it doesn’t save a huge amount of time. Regardless, the satisfaction of having something useful I can do by talking to a computer makes it all worthwhile.