Grading essays electronically

[Beth Adamczyk]

We are in year 2 of a 1:1 tablet program. Two of my 3 English teachers want to go back to paper for essays because they are not happy with either MS Word comments or using a stylus to grade in ink (Word or Journal). Has any one had any success with another way to grade essays electronically?

[Tami Brass]

Our teachers:
Have kids double-space EVERYTHING
Some:
- Have kids convert to Journal
- Have kids embed into OneNote
- Have kids print to OneNote
- Use Ink annotation (Better in Office 2007)
- Use traditional annotation

And a few will probably always have kids print... At least all of our printers are duplexing now - half the paper use :-)

I encourage various methods and nudge toward adoption. I train kids/faculty as much as permitted. You can give a teacher a tablet, but you can't make him ink.

[Jackie Regales]

I have really enjoy grading with my stylus, actually. What complaints do your teachers report?

[Beth Adamczyk]

They complain of eye strain and they miss the ability to flip through the pages. We have found the stylus in Word to be a bit unpredictable. I recommended that they print to journal instead, but I don't think they have tried that. I think it just might be that old habits die hard. I was just wondering if there was some other method that I hadn't considered.

[Tami Brass]

Friday an English teacher asked me if there were tablets with larger displays available (has had Toshiba M700 since school started; Satellite R10 before then). Eye strain, especially at the end of a term, is definitely an issue. I helped him adjust his resolution (his projector had been making it really fuzzy), and that made a difference. I'm also showing teachers how to hide the ribbon in Word 2007.
One thing I never do - tell teachers they HAVE to do everything electronically. I appreciate them giving it a try. I do suggest to teachers to collect everything electronically and print if they decide they need to. We have MFPs (printers with really fast scanning) so they can take inked paper documents and make them electronic if they need it for a portfolio.
The longer I do my job, the more paper becomes the adaptation for me. A few years ago, we allowed kids to do things electronically because they couldn't manage the paper. Now we allow a few kids (and some faculty) to do things w/paper because the electronic method might be too cumbersome, especially for experienced teachers who have a heavy correcting load at the end of a term.

[Beth Adamczyk]

Thanks, Tammy. That is exactly the direction that I am going in. I have an amazing group of teachers who have worked so hard to make this program happen. The teaching and learning is my primary concern.

[Jackie Regales]

I have to say that this is my third year at my school, (1:1 program with tablets) and this is the first year that I have really taken the stylus plunge! I think it does seem counter-intuitive at first, but for me, this year, the benefits outweighed the disadvantages.

My school has had the tablets for longer than I've been there, and there are still many teachers who don't use the function that often. The only time it might become a problem is if the students aren't using the tablet function much either, and then the parent question becomes, "Why are we spending so much on tablets when they don't use them?"

[Sister Elizabeth]

I have a question of logistics. I haven't taught in several years, but I am this year. I'm grading word documents using my stylus, which I love. The problem is in managing the exchange of papers. I usually have the students attach and email their documents to me. I mark them, reattach and email them back. What I want to have happen is for the students to make whatever changes I've marked and then return the corrected paper to me. However, I want a copy with my comments on it for me to refer to and a clean copy after the students edits.

I don't seem to be able to come up with a quick, easy strategy for the second round of edit and corrections.

Any one have a good, workable solution to this? Some day we will have a moodle server setup and I'm hoping that will help organize this some.

Thanks,

Sister Elizabeth

[Jackie Regales]

Hi Sister Elizabeth,

When I mark papers with a stylus, I always save the marked version that I'm sending back to the students. That way, I have the marked copy in my own files. The students should be able to make your suggested changes on their original document and then send it to you. Then you could have your marked copy plus their final draft as another document. Is that what you do already?

Does this make sense? I'm like you in that I prefer email as my system-- our school uses Sharepoint for our websites, and that has a dropbox feature, but so far I prefer email.

[Laura Flynn]

We are experimenting with editing using Google Docs. The teacher and/or peer editor can use highlighting/strikethrough in conjunction with embedded comments. The document owner (the student) can edit and make changes to this document, and old revisions are kept in a list. It's great because there is never more than one version of the file. We are finding that the concept change to editing electronically takes time for the students to "buy into" as well.
Here's the student Peer Editing using Google Docs.pdf quick start handout we made for the students. The reference to "LouisMail" is specific to our school email program, so you will want to strike that before copying for students.

[Beth Adamczyk]

Thanks, Laura !!