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Clay Burell

Top News - Technology helps boost students' writing skills - 0 views

www.eschoolnews.com/...index.cfm

education literacy pedagogy software writing

shared by Clay Burell on 18 Apr 08 - Snapshot

  • At Robbinsdale Cooper High School, which serves more than 2,000 students in grades 9-12 in a northwest suburb of Minneapolis, ninth-graders are just beginning to use WriteToLearn. Teachers and administrators say they'll use it to prepare for the state writing and reading assessments and have high hopes for success.


    "We're excited about the possibilities," said social-studies teacher Jill Kind. "The immediate feedback for the students will be great, as well as the knowledge we'll gain. We'll be able to see areas where students need help, so we'll be better able to individualize instruction."


    Earlier this school year, language-arts teacher Michael Jenkins started using WriteToLearn with his students at Estancia Middle School in New Mexico, and he's already seeing changes.


    "Lights are going on, and they're excited about learning," he said. "When I say it's time to go to the computer lab, they jump up and go, and I have no problem keeping them on task." He added that during a recent visit, Estancia's superintendent was surprised to see that the students were so immersed in WriteToLearn, they didn't even notice when the dismissal bell was about to ring.

  • California's Palm Springs Unified School District is investing more than $800,000 in Vantage Learning's MY Access!, an online writing program that it plans to implement throughout the district over the next three years.


    "Research shows how effectively [more frequent] writing increases achievement across the curriculum," said Superintendent Lori McCune. "Our teachers are looking forward to seeing not only improvement in written communication, but higher levels of achievement in all subjects they cover in their classrooms."


    To use MY Access!, students write an essay based on a teacher's assignment and submit it to the web-based system. MY Access! analyzes more than 350 semantic, syntactic, and discourse characteristics, scoring students on focus and meaning, organization, content and development, language use and style, mechanics and conventions, and overall writing proficiency. The ratings of these elements are combined into one score on a scale of one to six (or one to four, as determined by the teacher), which appears on the screen.


    "Writing is one of our most difficult areas to master," said McCune. "Oversized classes at the secondary level make it difficult for teachers to read a large volume of individual student work critically; [we feel] MY Access!, combined with effective professional practices, is the solution."


    She added: "With the quick feedback it provides on a one-on-one basis, students reach a higher level of proficiency before they even turn anything in to the teacher for review. This program is a natural extension of an educator's expertise."



     
  • Clay Burell
    Clay Burell on 18 Apr 08
     
    MY Access! writing instruction software another interesting tool for improving student writing. Would like to test-drive.
Clay Burell

Top News - Technology helps boost students' writing skills - 0 views

www.eschoolnews.com/...top-news

education literacy pedagogy software writing

shared by Clay Burell on 18 Apr 08 - Snapshot

  • Two high schools in Minnesota are using Pearson Education's WriteToLearn to help students build literacy skills and prepare for the new Minnesota writing assessment.


    The schools are Dunwoody Academy High School, a new technical charter school in north Minneapolis administered by Dunwoody College, and Robbinsdale Cooper High School, part of the Robbinsdale Area Schools in New Hope, Minn.


    With WriteToLearn, students practice essay writing and summarization skills, and their efforts are measured by a "Knowledge Analysis Technologies" (KAT) engine. The KAT engine is an automated assessment technology that evaluates the meaning of text by examining whole passages, not just grammatical correctness or spelling.


    "WriteToLearn is an awesome program that gives each student feedback right away, which is something a teacher cannot possibly have time to do," said Duane Dutrieuille, dean of academic and student affairs at Dunwoody Academy High School.

  • Clay Burell
    Clay Burell on 18 Apr 08
     
    WriteToLearn software sounds worth looking into.
Clay Burell

ALA | AASL Standards for the 21st-Century Learner - 0 views

www.ala.org/...standards.cfm

education literacy pedagogy standards

shared by Clay Burell on 14 Nov 07 - No snapshot
  • Clay Burell
    Clay Burell on 14 Nov 07
     
    New from ALA - good complement to NETS standards.
Clay Burell

Weblogg-ed » Using Pageflakes as Student Portal - 0 views

weblogg-ed.com/...g-pageflakes-as-student-portal

aggregators education literacy researching researchpaper rss web2.0

shared by Clay Burell on 11 Jul 07 - Snapshot
  • Clay Burell
    Clay Burell on 11 Jul 07
     
    A gem from Will Richardson on classroom use of Pageflakes.  I see a migration coming.
Clay Burell

The Educated Blogger: Using Weblogs to Promote Literacy in the Classroom - 0 views

scholar.google.com/scholar

blogging education literacy

shared by Clay Burell on 27 Mar 07 - Snapshot
  • Adolescents make up a large part of the community of bloggers, often

    referred to as the blogosphere. Perseus Development Corporation, for

    instance, finds 51.5% of all blogs are being developed and maintained by

    ages 13–19 (Henning, 2003). A similar study finds that 40.4% of blog

    authors are under age 20 (Herring, Scheidt, Bonus, & Wright, 2004). A visit

    to the statistics page of Livejournal.com, one of the most popular blog-

    hosted web sites, discloses the largest distribution of blog authors also falls

    below age 20

    1

    .

    Because blogs seem so popular with the youth, it is hard to ignore the

    implications for educational technology. Can blogs enhance learning

    environments? Can they be used in classroom settings? This article hypothe-

    sizes that blogs can be an important addition to educational technology

    initiatives because they promote literacy through storytelling, allow collabo-

    rative learning, provide anytime-anywhere access, and remain fungible

    across academic disciplines.

    To justify this hypothesis, this article will proceed as follows: First, it will

    look at the importance of literacy in children and adolescent development.

    Next, it will juxtapose storytelling as a catalyst for advancing literacy. Third,

    it will explore ways in which blogs can be used in the classroom for both

    individuals and groups, and across several disciplines. It will also demon-

    strate some examples already in use in classroom settings. Finally, this

    article will conclude with recommendations and future research implications.
Clay Burell

Eide Neurolearning Blog: Better Writing from Text Messaging and Blogging Teens - 0 views

eideneurolearningblog.blogspot.com/...g-from-text-messaging-and.html

blogging education literacy

shared by Clay Burell on 27 Mar 07 - Snapshot



  • Better Writing from Text Messaging and Blogging Teens






    From the Times, "Fears that text messaging may have ruined the ability of teenagers to write properly have been shown to be unfounded after a two-year study revealed that youngsters are more literate than ever before." Despite the frequent use of IM abbreviations, improvements were noted in the use of more complex sentence structures, wider vocabulary, and more accurate use of punctuation and spelling.

    We've also found it easier to improve keyboarding skills in middle and high school students with email, IM, or text-based gaming, vs. standard software programs.
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