Blog Post 13 What Did I Leave Out?

Instructions: Watch the video "Why schools need technology to teach writing" by Jeff Scheur at TEDx Gunn High School and list the ways he suggest that technology can improve writing

Answer the question in a post that adheres to the standards found in the ACCRS and in writing a quality blog post.

      Mr. Scheur opens up this TEDx session by mentioning that he almost destroyed a students' confidence. Tony, a student in his class, turned in a one sentence, three page paper. The paper had no commas or periods. Mr. Scheur asked Tony, "When you turned this paper in how did you feel about it, Tony replied, "He felt proud." This was because he had never turned in a paper before. Mr. Scheur decided if a student could slip through the cracks that much something needed to be done. Statistics show that 73% of American students are below proficient in writing. While the government has spent millions of dollars to improve math and science skills, little to no money has been put towards improving writing and grammar skills. Students are constantly given writing assignments from teachers who try to educate students in over crowded classrooms. For example, Mr. Scheur mentions that if a teacher has 170 students and does 15 minutes of grading it would take 42 hours of grading after school to grade everyone's paper. To combat this problem he came up with an innovation solution to help students gain writing and grammatical skills.
      First, he utilized Google Forms when it first launched to create a fun assignment. He called it "cutting the fluff". Basically, students were given a wordy or grammatically incorrect sentence and required to correct it or "cut the fluff". Google forms showed Mr. Scheur what the students were able to fix and it showed data so he could see where his students were falling short. This led to his next idea.
      Secondly, Mr. Scheur hired a computer engineer to develop a program that would help his students develop grammar skills. The program created a random incorrect sentence based on the students' interest such as celebrities, friends, and personal attractions. The students were required to fix it by capitalizing letters and dragging periods or commas from the punctuation box. If the student didn't correct the sentence the first time it would highlight the part of the incorrect sentence helping the student focus on the specific problem. If they got it wrong the second time the program would give them a hint. If they got it wrong the third time the program would show them the specific mistake, give a model of how to correct the sentence, and generate a new similar sentence.
      The program records the data and shows each individual student where they need help. Furthermore, it shows the teacher where their students need more practice. This allows the teacher to target specific training in the area and help their students gain the skills needed to master the exercise. Mr. Scheur introduced this program to a group of teachers in his eight year developing it and four weeks later he had 1,500 people using it. By the 9th week 15,000 people were using it. This is another example of how technology is revolutionizing the classroom and improving students' grades. This shows that all schools should incorporate technology in the classroom if we really want to give our students the best chance to succeed in school and in life.