*Re: Mark Miller* (or Benjamin Nushmutt<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sideways_Stories_From_Wayside_School#The_Kids_on_the_30th_Story>, I presume?)
Trust me -- with 138 students, you *wouldn't *survive this antiquated system. Last year, I had only *14* students, *BUT* I had the *most *students for writing out of any teacher in the whole school (even more than the head English teacher, who is my mentor!). Comparing just 14 to your 138 makes it seem like what I have should be a walk in the park, but since we have to tease out and evaluate every little thing within a student's paper in terms of content, grammar, spelling, holistic scoring, how many strategies a student used (i.e. brainstorm, cluster, outline, etc.), and how many strategies a student actually used *correctly...*suddenly somehow, it almost matches up. Don't get me wrong -- I do love doing what I do. Still, I can't help but wonder every single time I sit down to grade another round of these writing prompts which scenario would be more time consuming. Last year, it would take me as much as 16+ hours to grade all 14 papers, record all the data I needed, punch in the data that CritiWriter needs to process in order to obtain the rest of the data I needed, record that data, make two copies of everything -- one for me and one for the head writing teacher -- and then file the head writing teacher's copy away. This doesn't entirely factor in the "extra" time I put in to create and modify a special feedback sheet that I'd present the student with so he/she can understand *exactly *what strengths he/she had in said paper and what areas of growth he/she still needs to improve upon. Processing all this data is great and all, but hey -- if the kid never actually gets to see for him/herself how well he/she did and take a moment to reflect on that effort, how else is he/she going to learn how to improve anything? Personally, I'd love to just be able to grade papers using a class rubric with the special feedback sheet I've created so that the kids can still reflect on how well they've done. (Since these students have learning disabilities often coupled with impulsivity and the like, they tend to skip steps other "normal" students would do by nature. The special feedback sheet, incidentally, helps them focus on specific writing strategies within the seven steps we impress upon them to use. Most of these students would not be able to discern that information from looking at my graded, handwritten copy of their work, even if I wrote as neatly as possible -- presented that way, it's just TMI overload.) On the *9* major prompts given throughout the year to test these students' abilities to write * independently*, however, crunching all these numbers is key for their IEPs. (IEP = Individualized Education Plan, for those of you who love acronyms) In any case, I dig your idea of using macros in MS Word too. Frankly, as I've tried to make clear in this forum/mailing list, I could care less about how to get this done. OpenOffice seemed like the best candidate to me since using "open source" implied to me that whatever needed to be done *CAN* be done, theoretically easier than if I tried to twist the arm of coding in some commercial software, and then once it *is *done, then everyone can share it just as easily and be happy about it. I really don't care about how to get what I need to work, though -- use a macro, create a utility, make it a plug-in, make it some kind of add-on, modify some extension -- whatever is the easiest route to program and the most efficient interface to use, sign me up. If you are curious to check out the details of what I'm hoping to create/mod, check out this post: http://user.services.openoffice.org/en/forum/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=31880 Lastly, would you be willing to pass on the contact info of that teacher you know who uses macros? I would love to pick his/her brain on this and a few other teaching applications. Sincerely, Jeremy On Fri, Jul 2, 2010 at 10:16 AM, Mark C. Miller <[email protected]>wrote: > On 06/28/2010 12:48 AM, Jeremy Yanofsky @ Ben Bronz Academy wrote: > >> Creating a Writing Assessment utility >> > > I'm not quite sure what we're talking about. But do you have the resources > to use Bayesian statistics to evaluate writing? It's the same way a spam > filter learns what spam is. There seem to be a number of packages available > for sale, but I know I've seen at least one open source package -- I just > can't find it right now. Perhaps your headmaster has the requisite skills? > A windows-based freeware program called "Betsy" used to be available via > ERIC, but the site has gone dark. > > I'm a public high school English teacher, so definitely feel your pain > about your assessment system. Last year I had 138 students in six blocks > (classes) -- I couldn't imagine if I tried how I'd survive your system. > > A long shot would be to use OOo, then build macros to make comments on the > paper -- it would at least cut down on SOME of the writing you do on > student's papers. A teacher in my building did something like this with MS > Office 2007. She could grade a stack of papers in a half-hour that would > take the rest of us several hours. Unfortunately, the macros didn't work in > OOo. > > -- > Mark C. Miller > [email protected] > Indianapolis, Indiana > > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] > For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected] > >
