Our latest thoughts from the world of technology in education & the workplace

Texthelp Blog - Our latest thoughts from the world of technology in education & the workplace

Blog

As most of you will know, we’ve recently released our new Chrome extension, WriQ, which grades papers digitally - saving more time for other precious classroom activities. 

In the future, WriQ will also provide comparable insights on writing levels within a school, district or at a state/national level. Making it easier to allocate invaluable district resources, progress student literacy and improve writing performance. 

But to explore this further, here’s Martin on why learning analytics is so important for writing assessment, and how WriQ could be the new Fitbit for writing… 

WriQ: writing assessed with intelligence

If you would like to try WriQ, add the extension to your Chrome browser - and you’re all set! 

You may also find our literacy webinar with Kasey Bell of interest. Click through for more information and to sign up. 

For any feedback, suggestions or thoughts on how we can improve, please feel free to add to the comment section below.  

We recently sat down with our chief geek (Chief Technical Officer) Martin McKay to discuss all things writing, including how WriQ could be the new Fitbit for writing…

WriQ, the future Fitbit for writing

We recently sat down with our chief geek (Chief Technical Officer) Martin McKay to discuss all things writing, including how WriQ could be the new Fitbit for writing…

Depending on the application used to view PDF files, many PDF viewers fall short in areas such as:

Creating text, voice, or other annotations

The Texthelp PDF Reader, available for Read&Write for Google Chrome, Read&Write for Windows and Read&Write for Mac, aims to help remedy many of these common shortfalls. Built from the ground up, our Reader provides a lightning fast experience for anyone looking to interact with PDFs. 

If you are using Read&Write for Google Chrome, watch this video to learn how to open PDF files in Google Drive, the web, or even your local hard drive.

If you are using Read&Write for Windows or Mac, simply click on the PDF Reader icon within the Read&Write toolbar to open your PDF file. 

The Tools You Love, Now Available in PDFs

Once you’ve opened a PDF through any of the above methods, you can use the Read&Write tools you know and love to:

Look up words in the Dictionary and Picture Dictionary

Collaboration & Annotation in Read&Write for Google Chrome

The Texthelp PDF Reader in Read&Write for Google Chrome also comes with handy collaboration features like commenting and annotations. 

To use commenting, first select some text, then click the comment icon to the right of the selection and make a comment (just like in Google Docs). You can even use word prediction or speech input to help you type, or create an audio comment using your voice! You can also insert images or links, and listen and respond to others’ comments made in PDFs shared through Google Drive.

Use the Typewriter Tool to annotate files or fill in the blanks on worksheets. Simply click the “T” icon from the toolbar, click where you would like to insert your text, and start typing. As with comments, you can use prediction and dictation to help. 

The freehand drawing tool is perfect for anything from marking up your own document, to circling answers on an assignment. To use, just click the Freehand Drawing button, adjust the color and line thickness settings, and start drawing. This feature is especially great for touchscreen devices.

The Shapes Drawing tool includes options for squares, circles and lines with customizable line color, fill color and line thickness. Use it for circling/boxing the answer to a multiple choice question, underlining important details in a reading passage, and so much more.

For even more ways you can use the Texthelp PDF Reader, including its integration with Google Classroom and our digital STEM tool, EquatIO, check out a recent webinar on ‘Making PDFs Accessible and Collaborative’.

Use the feedback within Read&Write or the Comments section below to send us feedback anytime. We look forward to hearing from you!

Introducing PDF Reader: the new viewer for PDFs that brings together cool new collaboration tools with the Read&Write features you know and love!

Texthelp’s New PDF Reader Now Available

Transform PDFs with the Texthelp PDF Reader

Portable Document Format (PDF) files continue to be one of the most popular file formats found both on and off the web. They’re great when you need to retain formatting, restrict others from editing, or save a digital copy of a file. PDFs are also easily viewable on devices ranging from phones to Chromebooks. 

However, when it comes to accessibility, engagement, and collaboration within PDFs, the file format falls short. That’s why we've created the Texthelp PDF Reader, which provides a speedy experience while integrating all the bells and whistles anyone looking to interact with PDFs would want. Read on to find out more.

While its roots lie in the US, Universal Design for Learning has blossomed into a global phenomenon. Attendees from the Americas, Europe and Asia Pacific prove the point, united in their enthusiasm to connect UDL with an even broader audience.

The Texthelp team has engaged with a range of UDL ‘rockstars’ – spanning educators, academics, researchers and nonprofits – to hear about what they’ll be covering in their talks during the event. Take a look!

Katie Novak - When UDL Doesn't Go So Smoothly

We can all learn from our mistakes. And at this year’s UDL-IRN Summit in Orlando, Florida fwe’ll be hearing a very personal perspective on failure from a leader on inclusive learner-focused education. In anticipation, here's a preview of what Katie Novak will be speaking about at the conference.

Joni Degner - UDL From a Human Perspective

Joni Degner will be urging us to think about UDL from a human perspective – and dial out unconscious biases that can unintentionally overlook the real needs of students ‘on the margins’, including learners from disadvantaged demographic groups, ELLs and reluctant learners.

Sue Hardin - A Positive, Inclusive Pathway to UDL

In her ‘End of Average’ talk at this year's UDL-IRN, Sue will ask how we can make every educator’s pathway to UDL success the positive, inclusive experience it should be. Read more ahead of the conference.

Loui Lord Nelson - Responding to External Stresses with UDL

As busy professionals we often complain about being ‘time poor’. But it takes on another meaning in low-income households where parents may be battling to hold down multiple jobs, feed young mouths and simply cope with everyday struggles to survive. Read what Loui Lord Nelson has to say ahead of UDL-IRN.

Luis Perez - Getting from 'Here' to 'There'

How do we get from Here to There? Acclaimed instructional designer Luis Pérez will be taking educators on a thought-provoking journey at this year’s UDL-IRN Summit, exploring technology’s role in UDL – while encouraging educators and learning designers to think about how they can best accommodate tech within their own practice.

Jason Carroll - Creating a level playing field for today’s students

A whole lot can happen in the space of a generation. And it’s easy to underestimate all the good stuff that happens incrementally, often without us even noticing. At this month’s UDL-IRN Summit, Texthelp’s Jason Carroll reflects on the exciting opportunities for young learners that simply didn’t exist twenty years ago... and tech’s essential role in this positive transformation.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What are you looking forward to at this year's UDL-IRN? Let us know in the comments below!

Universal Appeal: the biggest ever UDL‑IRN Summit

The stage is set….Doubletree at the Entrance to Universal Studios in Florida is the venue for the upcoming, hotly anticipated UDL-IRN International Summit, billed as the meeting place ‘Where UDL Leaders Come to Learn’. Proudly supported by Texthelp, this year’s Summit will welcome over 400 delegates in person, plus hundreds more joining online from around the world. Read on to discover all that's going on during the conference...

If the name sounds familiar, don’t be confused. WriQ has actually been available for some time as an add-on for Google Docs. However, over the last year, we’ve been re-building WriQ from the ground up, evolving it into a Google Chrome extension.

This new WriQ extension helps with one of the biggest pieces of feedback we’ve received from WriQ add-on users - it allows you to view and mark errors directly in the Google Doc (as opposed to using a pop-up window). This means that you can scroll through the Doc and make comments along the way without having to exit WriQ.

The initial launch of the WriQ extension is available now, but there’s lots more to come in 2019 and beyond. We’ll go into that further down in this post. But first, where to find the new WriQ.

You can install the WriQ extension from the Chrome Web Store. Google administrators can also deploy WriQ just like any other extension (note that WriQ is for teachers only at the moment, but a student version will be available later in the year).

Once WriQ is installed, you’ll be taken through an enrollment process where you will be asked to enter your details and view a quick overview video. If you’ve used the WriQ add-on in the past, the WriQ extension will automatically pull in your information and ask you to confirm a few things. Once you migrate to the extension you cannot go back to the add-on (the add-on will be discontinued before the end of the school year so all users will need to migrate to the extension eventually).

Introduction to the WriQ Chrome Extension

After installing WriQ, a new icon will appear in the browser next to the address bar along with any other extensions you have installed.

To use WriQ simply navigate to a Google Doc that contains some text and click the icon. A WriQ tab will appear to the right of the Doc. This tab will remain visible in all Docs.

Click the toggle button to turn on WriQ. WriQ will underline any errors that it picks up and identify them as spelling, grammar, or punctuation. You can click on any error to change or remove it. You can also click on any other words in the document to identify errors that WriQ may have missed.

After you’ve finished marking errors, click the arrow on the WriQ tab to expand the WriQ panel. Here you will see a summary of errors along with other valuable metrics like time spent writing, vocabulary maturity, and more. Be sure to double check that the student’s grade is correct and choose the appropriate genre.

After reviewing you can continue on to the rubric. Here you will be presented with a rubric from Texthelp that is based on the student grade and genre type. (In the future, you’ll be able to add your own custom rubrics with a premium license). You can also choose to skip the rubric entirely and continue on to the summary screen. If you do choose to complete the rubric, be sure to complete each section or you won’t be able to move on.

Finally, on the summary screen, you’ll be presented with a WriQ and rubric score, along with a feedback area where you can write custom feedback to the student. The WriQ score is a custom score that generally ranges between 3 and 300 and is based on the student's grade and writing metrics. It is a single score that encompasses pace, accuracy, productivity, and maturity. For more details on the WriQ score visit our blog or click the small question mark above the score in the WriQ panel.

Last but not least you’ll want to save the score so that you can view it later. This will also allow you to insert a summary of the score and feedback into the student’s Doc for them to review.

You can come back to the Doc at any time to view the score. If a student updates the Doc later you’ll be notified next time you open the Doc with WriQ turned on. You can then choose to re-score the Doc if you wish.

Grading student writing is very subjective. If you ask 50 teachers to grade the same assignment you could end up with 50 different scores. This makes it incredibly difficult for a school or school district to know if their students as a whole are making progress.

Over the last two years we’ve collected an enormous data set that has allowed us to create standardized norms for assessing writing, which we combine to create the WriQ Score. But what’s the point of norms if schools/districts can’t use it to understand their students’ progress?

So, in the future, we’ll be adding lots of additional features to the WriQ extension to help with this, including:

A new custom dashboard for teachers that includes a running record of scored documents, progress charts, meaningful data, and more.

National norms to help better compare if students are writing on grade level (and what areas they may need the most assistance in if not)

We will also be adding the ability to create custom rubrics and a student version of WriQ where students can view their progress and receive help and encouragement when writing. So keep an eye out for announcements on these upcoming enhancements. In the meantime give the new WriQ extension a try by clicking on the image below!

Once you've installed, please let us know what you think by filling out the WriQ feedback form or leaving us a comment below.

Assessing student writing is a time consuming and tedious process. Reading through and evaluating dozens of multi-page documents and providing meaningful feedback during your “free” time is no one’s idea of fun. But we’ve come up with a solution that can help. It’s called WriQ® and it provides a standardized norm for assessing writing in Google Docs.

The new WriQ - simplify writing assessment in Docs

Technology and pedagogy might seem like a mouthful, but there’s a reason the two are often spoken in the same breath. Historically seen as two separate yet complementary strands in teaching, the evolution of tech - as well as how classrooms have adapted to it - has allowed technology and pedagogy to become more closely aligned, ultimately offering greater possibilities for learning and academic outcomes.

We’re fortunate to live in an era when technology has swiftly evolved to enhance and achieve the foundations of education by providing dynamic opportunities for students to engage and interact with the learning process. Where traditionally teaching relied on pen and paper methods, more often educators can now utilise EdTech to expand and enrich instruction, allowing concepts to be brought to life through a wide variety of media, whether it’s to explain geometric concepts, quadratic equations, scientific formulae, or even computer coding languages.

With such a wide variety of tools available, and with a broad scope of functionality and design, EdTech can bolster lesson delivery in different ways to effectively engage students and encourage them to enjoy subject exploration on their own, while supporting the individual strategies of educators. Take text-to-speech as an example. A simple concept, but one that allows students to identify problem words or sentences, hear them read aloud, and help them to build oral fluency and contextual understanding.

Building on that train of thought (and practise), the capability to change things like pace, voice, language, and tone puts personal learning firmly in the hands of the student. Though guided by the educator, diverse outcomes are easily achieved when these tools are used - learners can access content at the appropriate level, disseminate information in their own chosen way, and begin to develop a way of thinking and working. These outcomes, of course, seem enormous, but in reality they’re obtained in small steps every day, and are so much more achievable when a learner grows confident in the knowledge that they have support tools at their fingertips. 

Our own Read&Write offers a comprehensive toolbar containing all of these tools in one place, and enables vocabulary development, contextual comprehension, as well as grammar and punctuation. But there are a world of different technologies out there that can support students in different ways.

We’ve also been developing our maths & STEM software tool EquatIO, to offer classrooms an accessible, intuitive, and fun way of exploring these subjects beyond the restrictions of the blackboard. EquatIO gives students and teachers the ability to type, hand-write, or dictate any expression, with no tricky coding or maths languages to master. There’s a huge library of predictive, ready-made expressions to save time - from simple formulas to complex functions.

Educators don’t necessarily need to design learning strategies around these tools - it’s about providing opportunities for students to use them when and where appropriate. EdTech isn’t about replacing teachers and traditional notions of teaching, it’s about bolstering the excellent job that each and every teacher does. 

What’s more, in today’s rapidly advancing technological climate, there’s a need to prepare students for the world beyond education. Whilst every student may not be coding in their career, they will no doubt be interacting with at least one piece of technology on a daily basis. Students who come at technology with an open mind will excel in education and also beyond, into the workplace, because we can be certain of one thing; the technological landscape is going to change unbelievably in the next ten years.

Texthelp’s Read&Write and EquatIO are absolutely free for teachers. Visit our Free for Teachers page to register, and give them a go for yourself.

If you've already tried our Free for Teachers products, you may find these free digital maths webinars useful. 

Technology & Pedagogy: Powering 21st Century Learning

Originally published in Education Today (March Edition), our CTO talks about the evolution of technology and why it's now more closely aligned with pedagogy. 

What do you think the year ahead has in store in terms of Educational Technology?

2019 is going to be another great year for EdTech. One of the things we are continuing to see is IT costs continuing to fall.

Access to technology is getting better. 15 years ago Nicholas Negroponte, from MIT, was talking about a one laptop per child initiative and he was trying to get the cost of computing down to about $100 per child. Many thought that it was a completely unachievable goal. If you go onto Amazon today,  there are laptops available at that price and they're going to continue to drop. Laptops are going to continue to get more powerful and that means that it's going to be more reasonable for every child to have a device in school.

It's not like two years ago when Chromebooks were inexpensive and Windows computers were typically more expensive. Now Microsoft are releasing Windows Core next year which is going to be a superlight and inexpensive version of Windows to run on cheaper laptops.

Will big data/learning analytics have a major impact on education this incoming year? What are you doing to incorporate them into your software?

Learning analytics have been a slow burner for a few years now but this is going to be the year that they take to the main stage.  When we talk about learning analytics we’re talking about measuring how students learn, not just how they use a piece of technology.  Being able to look at things like how quickly students write, what is the error rate of the writing, what's the maturity of their writing, how many spelling, punctuation and grammar errors there are, how long did they spend writing per day will be invaluable.

Over the last year at Texthelp, we've been able to create a set of national norms for writing for the US and we're planning to expand that next year to include Canada, Australia and hopefully the UK too.  This means that teachers are going to be able to see how their students are writing compared to the national norm.

Another technical trend we’re seeing, particularly in regard to assessment, is using technology and AI to make ongoing regular assessment faster and easier for teachers and also to try to take out some of the subjectivity from assessment.  For example, if you give a student a writing task and you have 10 teachers assess that writing task you'll probably get 10 different scores. The technology we’ve been working on will not only create the national norms but will try to remove some of the subjectivity from writing assessment using AI and statistical approaches. This will allow teachers to quickly and consistently assess writing.

There is a big buzz around machine learning - how big a role will this have to play in education in the year ahead?

Machine learning is incredible. It’s a hot topic everywhere at the moment and it’s going to be as relevant in education as it is anywhere else.  Children learning how to develop machine learning technologies in class and then implement them is something that would have been inconceivable ten years ago - now it's just the norm!  What they can do in one day or even in an hour of code project is truly fantastic.  For example, they can build their own machine learning based technologies on raspberry PI's and Play’s at home.  Google have also introduced a new thing called AIY - the Artificial Intelligence Yourself version of DIY, which allows the user to use kits and devices to build intelligent systems that see, speak, and understand. Then start tinkering. Take things apart, make things better. See what problems they can solve.  It’s very cool stuff.

What are your EdTech trends for 2019?  Tell us in the comments below, we’d love to hear your thoughts on this...

A fresh new year is upon us once again and we’ve caught up with our ‘chief geek’ Martin McKay - our Chief Technology Officer and one of the founders of Texthelp, to see what his predictions are for Education Technology this in-coming year.

The Future of Education Technology: Trends for 2019

As 2019 progresses, we caught up with our ‘chief geek’ Martin McKay - our Chief Technology Officer and one of the founders of Texthelp, to see what his predictions are for Education Technology this year.

Blog

WriQ, the future Fitbit for writing

Transform PDFs with the Texthelp PDF Reader

Universal Appeal: the biggest ever UDL‑IRN Summit

The new WriQ - simplify writing assessment in Docs

Technology & Pedagogy: Powering 21st Century Learning

The Future of Education Technology: Trends for 2019

Categories

Education

Solutions

Products

Workplace

Solutions

Products

Resources

Resource center

Events

Learn & Support

Company