Podcast Series: Innovations in Education

Explore the full series of eSchool News podcasts hosted by Kevin Hogan—created to keep you on the cutting edge of innovations in education.

How peer feedback can improve student writing skills

The art of writing, invented roughly 5,000 years ago, represents a blip in human history. It’s younger than agriculture, music, and construction. And as recently as the Revolutionary War, a majority of Americans couldn’t put pen to paper. In short: Writing remains a new feat of technology. We’re still figuring it out. 

Despite its relative youth, writing has evolved into a vital skill. Today, we broadly recognize that citizenship requires the ability to read and write. As Orwell put it: “If people cannot write well, they cannot think well, and if they cannot think well, others will do their thinking for them.”

Perhaps as importantly, writing is a key skill for professional success. Hiring managers, for example, are more likely to cite writing skills as “very important” for new hires, compared to technological and quantitative reasoning skills. If students leave campus without refined writing skills, we’ve done them a great disservice. …Read More

Dictionary.com: A back-to-school resource for all your language needs

Once solely a reference source, Dictionary.com has evolved into a comprehensive online and mobile learning destination that offers a blend of free and subscription-based personalized vocabulary and writing help to students. This customizable website offers quizzing applications across multiple platforms, as well as interactive study tools that support curricula from elementary through graduate school, its creators say.

The website’s Word Dynamo service, which is free of charge, uses gaming and social features to bridge the gap between classroom and home learning. It enables students to grow their command of language at their own pace, and teachers also can use the service to augment in-class lessons and as a resource for homework assignments and study tools.

Writing Dynamo, billed as a “personal writing coach,” is a subscription-based writing analyzer that helps students improve their writing skills. For $5 per month, students can use the service to fine-tune their copy for polished final drafts—or even get feedback on resumes and college application essays.…Read More

Online writing tools focus on teacher development, student engagement

The rigorous Common Core standards for writing outline the skills that students should be able to demonstrate beginning as early as kindergarten.

If there’s one skill that everyone agrees all students must learn across the curriculum, it’s how to write well—and the move toward adopting the Common Core State Standards adds even greater urgency to this effort.

The rigorous Common Core standards for writing outline the skills that students should be able to demonstrate beginning as early as kindergarten. For example, sixth graders should be able to write arguments to support their claims “with clear reasons and relevant evidence,” among other standards.…Read More