Scribo September 2020 Newsletter

Literatu - Jan 2020 Newsletter

Connect with LIVE Writing to encourage and help all types of writers.

Once upon a time, and I’m going back as far as 2016 (so bear with me), students were given an essay prompt and a deadline. Cloud based Google Docs and O365 features, opened an online blank document in which students could research and write. In 2016 students could ask their teachers for help but that was hard when the school was shut. Alas, what was once a piece of paper to write on, was now a blank screen. Students started to evolve into one of 8 types of writers. The risk was that they would remain in these categories and not progress.

Research, authoring, writing, rewriting and frustration comprised the student experience as they digitised their thoughts, often late the night before work was due. Delaying writing was a common practice, “anything but write essays” students would say. At least all of the new platforms had spelling and grammar checking. Even though Google, Microsoft and Grammarly all offered different advice, it was better than nothing. The problem was you had to write something before these systems would tell you what to change and then you would just accept all the changes anyways. The main source of angst for every student was understanding how they could deliver good grammar and spelling and still get a bad grade.

All the students in the land had the same problem. They did their best. Corrections and comments by way of pen markings came back from teachers weeks after their interest had moved on. All students felt like they had been marked harshly. It was a difficult time. The new keyboard and screen had not met the ‘better writing’ promise, just made it more...modern. Students began to think they were just bad at writing.

Meanwhile teachers worked more hours of overtime than ever before. Technology and the concept of electronic text did not really speed things up or improve writing. There was still the process of grading, checking and correcting errors even though grammar and spelling had improved with technology. The amount of time teachers invested in grading and reviewing each essay became highly correlative to the total time students spent writing. One teacher summed it up saying that waiting for work to be handed in was like waiting for a tsunami to hit. Students said the tsunami started when they were given the work to do. Dueling tsunamis happened every week.

Even back in those times, students wanted more of what they want now; faster and more extensive feedback on where and how to improve.

Moving forwards to 2020, teachers remain overrun with grading workloads and lesson planning. They live in hope that students will take more ownership in their own work. Further aggravated by the cycle of ‘write then grade’ , teachers still spend way too much time in overtime. The cycle of writing and then hours correcting has persisted for years.

Research suggests that 20-40% of current teacher hours are spent on activities that could be automated using existing technology. That translates into approximately 13 hours per week that teacher could redirect toward activities that lead to higher student outcomes and higher teacher satisfaction. [McKinsey Research]

Scribo helps teachers find the time to help students to write better

Moving the clock forward into the new decade of 2020, Scribo 2.0 opens possibilities.

Scribo meets the challenges of developing writing skills across K-12 and Tertiary studies whilst tackling the seemingly impossible task of reducing teacher workloads, head on.

That's a powerful new decade resolution right there. To make this happen, Scribo forges new LIVE connections between teachers and students.

Every day, most of us explore and discover how technology can do something more or us. Very few people actually use or know all of the features of their smartphone yet are quite happy to let the features they know help them do what my son calls 'stuff'. It took my 80 year old mother seconds to learn how to send a text. Within days pictures now accompany every text moment and get loaded on Facebook and Instagram. The metaphor of smartphones should be continuous with AI and technology in education. The concept of ‘what’s possible’ with some technology is not foreign to anyone, anymore.

Scribo, like smartphones, also opens possibilities across many fronts. The speed at which these possibilities are adopted depends on a simple activation of features,. Don't forget technology literacy is a critical 21st century skill.

Scribo 2.0 is powered by machine learning and AI allowing data to drive the creation of personalised feedback and writing analysis. Don't let the often misunderstood ‘A’ (for Artificial) in the acronym cause concern, computers will not be cognitive for many years to come. Most people long for more ‘I’ for intelligence and insight and that's what computers can do. There is no doubt that technology can make many things we do easier. AI in education is technology that makes things possible.

Scribo 2.0 connects with students via AI, helping them to write better as they write. Simultaneously Scribo gives teachers the time to be the specialist coaches and mentors by doing the bulk of text analysis for teachers. Rather than replace teachers, emerging technologies help them do their job more efficiently. Scribo is a great example of this.

Importantly Scribo 2.0 does more than simply correcting mistakes in writing. ‘Correction’ is a last decade word. Scribo connects students and teachers with a single purpose of continuous feedback and improvement in writing skills.

• Where are student writing issues right now?

• How can we better guide students now?

• Where will targeted teaching help build sustainable writing skills growth?

Grades become secondary, improvement in writing skills becomes the driving possibility. Scribo 2.0 facilitates this connection. Moving the narrative to be about growing writing skills through stronger teaching and learning connections is the conversation many teachers want to be part of.

Growth should be the thesis of a progressive conversation about improving student writing skills.

LIVE connections between students and teachers open up a whole new learning space for writing improvement. No more lonely writing time for students, no more weekends of grading and marking for teachers. Writing and feedback are both supported in a continuous connection.

If we don’t better connect teachers and students to grow writing skills , the climate of writing improvement will be slow to change and as we all know in 2020 and beyond, climate change threatens the future of the world in so many ways.

Scribo 2020 LIVE

New capabilities in Scribo 2.0 come from stronger teacher and student connections. With a supply of great ideas flowing in, we distilled all requests down to three main categories teachers said “ I would really like to see…”

1. Give students more immediate feedback for multiple writing styles across all types of subjects. Facilitating more ownership in their writing is a key driver of improvement in students.

2. Make it quicker and easier for teachers to check on student work, give instant feedback and plan for student needs. Teachers want an open workflow to get quicker and easier access to information. Teachers also want to get more done in school hours without more after hours.

3. Integrate Scribo with Google Docs and Classroom, Office 365 and Teams - to reduce doubling up on effort and workflow crossovers. O365 and Teams is now available.

Welcome to Scribo 2.0, a re imagined Scribo built for all years and levels of learning, including Tertiary students. Scribo 2.0 brings together smarter AI capability, simpler interfaces, better feedback and stronger insights and integration in a single platform for everyone to use.

For teachers and tutors, the LIVE management panel brings all the functionality of Scribo together. Integrated workflows let teachers drive Scribo from Google Docs and O365. For students, Scribo SOLO suits all subjects and levels. New tailored feedback, an integrated question and writing style analyser together with an awesome immersive reader in multiple languages, are just some of the big additions for students to self-improve their writing using Scribo.

The stop and start corks are out!

We simplified ‘workflow rules’ that all systems organically formulate over time, dropping, assumptions around how we thought teachers and students would optimally use Scribo. We opened the platform to cater for multiple workflow and access possibilities.

LIVE Monitor

Scribo lets teachers monitor every writing activity, live. This means teachers can ‘drop into’ any student response to review and leave feedback at any time. Live Monitor looks into student writing across Google Docs, O365 or Scribo Web. If you are a teacher with multiple classes, there is one screen for you to manage all writing tasks and access all of the features of Scribo.

The Scribo Class Panel report can be run at any time, showing the progress of the cohort real time. No more waiting for hand ins and final student submissions. Surprises are for birthdays!

Deep integration with Google Docs and Classroom

Scribo 2.0 has a fully integrated Google Add on available in the Google Marketplace. Teachers and students can use all of Scribo’s functionality from Google Docs. Scribo 2.0 closely links with Google Classroom, syncing in a one click process. All Activities assigned in Scribo , flow to Google Classroom, seamlessly. Students can open Scribo from Classroom activities , Google Docs or Scribo Web. All roads lead to Scribo.

Students can launch Scribo from Google Docs and see all writing check feedback in Google as they work. One click for writing check, one click to ‘raise your hand’.

More power in Feedback

With Google Docs and O365 / Teams doing a lot of feedback and commentary between teachers and students already, we decided to centralise feedback in Scribo. Scribo brings Google feedback into view, centralises all Scribo feedback and tracks feedback across all activities for each student.

When integrated with Google Docs, teacher feedback given in Scribo updates into Google Docs Comments. Teacher feedback given via Google Comments is shown is Scribo. Students see all teacher feedback in Google and Scribo. All Scribo feedback is emailed to the students via Google messaging.

Creating feedback is faster

Scribo gives teachers a new “standard” feedback capability. Teachers select feedback clauses from a library of commonly applied feedback - one click and the feedback is inserted. Dictation translates spoken feedback to text.

Teachers can now build their own commonly used feedback clauses and phrases to save even more time and potentially typing mistakes.

Live Work In Progress (WIP) Feedback and Grading - why wait?

Work in Progress is typically the ‘state’ of student writing tasks at any one time.The WIP ‘state’ becomes more final the closer the date gets to hand in. No matter any more. Teachers can 'drop into’ student work linked via Google Docs or Scribo Web at any time to leave feedback.

The concept of WIP opens up the workflow. Every student text is open for all types of feedback at all times. There is no Draft state that has to be managed and handed in, and back. Everything is Live.

If a teacher is using Google Docs, why use feedback in Scribo you ask? Google Docs does a great job creating one on one feedback however, Google won't classify feedback and it won't aggregate all of the feedback you give all students across the class. Google feedback is simply for one student, at a time. Scribo feedback flows back into Google feedback so the choice is yours.

In the Scribo Live panel, teachers open student work, create feedback on the text and exit. Teachers don't have to wait for ‘hand In’ or ‘draft submit’ from a student , they just get in there and give feedback. The student text is up to date within 10 seconds of where students are or could be live typing.

Students will see the comment live if they are working in the Google document or are in Scribo Web. All feedback given via Scribo is also updated into Google Comments. Google picks up the commentary and emails to students so they know feedback is there for them to look at.

It’s the same with grading. Teachers can grade a draft as simply as giving it a Text A,B etc , a number X / Y or use a rubric. WIP grading can give a student an indication of where they are right now. Why wait for the big surprise. Grades can change on final submissions. Again it is an example of how flexible we have made the workflow.

Live Monitor - Panel Report included

The new Live Monitor Panel can be launched from Google Docs or Scribo. The Live Panel gives teachers access to all of the functions Scribo in one mouse click. Track students, open student work, create and launch the famous panel Connect Report .

The Connect Report can be run at any time, as long as you have at least 2 essays texts from students in the class linked into the Live Panel. This makes the Panel report a WIP report.

Teachers can:

• Check where students are at in seconds

• Have mid point check ins with the class based on WIP work,. Simply create and run the Panel report anytime

• Give feedback at any stage of WIP of student work

• Do a writing check for any student

• Give a score or Rubric grade

• Tune the Scribo AI rating system to better match patterns of writing for next time

• Run style checking

• See all feedback on any Student text

New SOLO writing check features for Students

Students have more power than ever before in a SOLO and Class connected mode. Students don't need to be connected to classes and teachers to be allocated Activities to work on. Students can run SOLO in Scribo meaning at any time, they can link their writing to Scribo for an instant check. These writing checks can be saved and are particular to each student as a writing portfolio. This means of course students can use Scribo for any subject, even if the teacher has not set up Scribo for his / her class.

Question Analyser

Step 1 - Do a Topic and Keywords writing check

When in SOLO mode, the missing piece used to be the question. What the question is asking is really important when giving feedback on the response. Because Scribo is used across so many subjects at so many levels, we built a question analyser for students to enter their question into.

Scribo decomposes the elements of the question, builds the keywords, finds the limited words and matches the task verbs to what is required. If there are words we missed or words you would like to add, modify the question parameters until they are just right. You can come back and modify the question any time you like - then re-run Scribo SOLO for a new result.

The new Question builder is on Scribo Web, accessed through Writing check.

Step 2 : Tell Scribo your question, we work out what you have to do

Step 3 : Write your response and run a writing check.

Scribo AI extracts the elements of the questions, builds the keywords, isolates the limiting , context words and matches the writing styles that the question demands. In this case, the question asks to Discuss, State and Summarise. To effectively answer the question, students will need to use language that incorporates all of these variables.

With this information profiled, Scribo writing check does a really good job of looking into the actual response to find and build on topic, on task feedback.

Enjoy the Style Analyser

Following on from the Question Analyser is the Style Analyser, Once we have a fix on the question you are answering, we can set up the default style analyser for you to check your response against. You can flexibly change the writing traits and styles you are looking for and or checking..

Scribo has learnt the language of over 19 writing styles. Writing styles include : , Account for, Analyse, Compare, Criticise, Define, Describe, Discuss, Evaluate, Explain,. Illustrate, Interpret, List, Outline,Proves, Relate, Review, State, Summarise, To what extent, Trace.

Within each writing style Scribo identifies a number of rhetorical moves. Every academic writer makes rhetorical moves, for example, entering a debate, using evidence to support an argument, winding down to a conclusion, opening up a topic, and critiquing another writer’s argument. “Metalanguage” is the way authors talk about their writing, for example, “In this study, I will explore…” and this may vary by discipline.

Scribo helps writers identify the rhetorical moves they are making and if the requirements of the question are being met. The voice identification of 1st, 2nd and 3rd person are sensational.

The entire rules base for this feature is learning every day. New words can be added, moved and shaped. If schools have a list of words they encourage, these can be easily accounted for and very quickly set up. The flexibility behind this feature is extensive and for the next few months the Style Analyser is in Beta as we work with students and teachers to further refine the accuracy of the model.

More precise feedback - by paragraph

Scribo now delivers feedback by Paragraph with a coded Red, Amber and Green color code. Anything Red or Amber should be looked at immediately. All feedback changes according to the writing the students are submitting and for each writing check. Parameters of year level and style requirements etc are used to create the right level of feedback each time the check is run. This is fully supported in Google Docs as well.

In late March we will release the feedback editor allowing schools and teachers to modify the feedback, making it particular , even more particular , to the audience in which it is used.

Immersive reader

Research shows that when someone reads your work back to you, you pick up more errors that you do if you read the work to yourself.

In line with this research we added the fabulous Immersive Reader feature that adds a whole bunch of features. The computer reads the text back to students and teachers at a tempo and style that suits you. Reader is multilingual, made to help dyslexic students with reading and ESL / International students / all students , better at finding improvements to be made..

Summary

It’s been a busy cycle of development that has brought home all these new teacher and student features. We are now building feedback and analytics teams , made up of teachers using Scribo daily to help refine and polish the detail in what we do. Technology when used correctly can facilitate good teaching but it will never replace teachers!

We are now complete on O365 integration and expect to have this through the Store in Term 1, 2020.

Here are some of the analytics we have been working on.

• Sending summaries to students and teachers about where improvements have been made

• Who needs the most help and what type of help

• Where is Growth in writing happening - or not

• What subjects are going well ?- metrics

• What classes are doing great work? - metrics

• Where would more development be done with students?

• Feedback summaries for students and teachers

• Sentiment analysis of feedback

• Comparison of progress between schools - opt in needed

It’s all in place, not released just yet. Our next phase is to work with teachers to build out the alert infographics that make sense to them , heads of departments and students. We will be asking some key people to join us to make this come alive. We expect this to be in front of our users in Term 1, 2020.