TS-9.3

R E V I E W 79 teachwire.net/secondary 79 straight away.WriQ’s instantaneous nature means that valuable time isn’t wasted waiting for the feedback loop to be closed – instead, students can finish a passage of writing and be given a plethora of information about how they’ve done there and then. Each student is given access to their own personalisedmini dashboard,the ‘WriQMeter’, which they can use to track their‘writing bursts’ – howmany words they have written without taking a pause or break.These writing bursts are used to encourage heightened productivity, and come accompanied by positive nudge notifications that spur students on to do a little better each day. TheWriQ system canmeasure metrics that are usually impossible for teachers to objectively track themselves, such as word writing rate and vocabularymaturity, giving teachers an extra level of insight into their students’ level of understanding and progress. This progress can then be monitored over time and expressed via a single numerical score, giving educators a straightforward and accurate picture of students’ progress at an individual or class level. At secondary school there’s often a lot of emphasis on reading comprehension, but comparatively little on the process of writing. WriQ does much to redress the balance, being an empowering tool that can help teachers and leaders make more informed decisions on how to help their students. Getting students to write more effectively and efficiently can be something of a Holy Grail that involves considerable time investment and processes that are difficult to track. Helping students improve their writing isn’t as simple as picking up on one or two aspects that can be improved on; there’s muchmore to it than that. WriQ is a Google Chrome extension developed by edtech specialists,Texthelp. WriQ helps teachers instantly assess student writing and provide valuable feedback seamlessly through Google Docs or Google Classroom.Think of it as a Fitbit for writing, helping students independently improve their writing stamina and output by crunching and clearly presenting large quantities of related data. As the students write,the program can track their productivity (howmuch they write), accuracy (howmany errors theymake), pace (the speed at which they write) andmaturity (the extent of their vocabulary).This information is then fed back to students, allowing them to track their own writing progress daily, weekly or monthly, and work towards certain goals and achievement badges. Getting students to respond positively to spelling, punctuation and grammar activities is notoriously difficult, henceWriQ’s efforts at framing these often dry elements in a different,more playful guise. Feedback is most effective when given A powerful writing practice and assessment tool designed with the needs of both teachers and students inmind A T A G L ANCE ENG L I SH l A Google Chrome extension that helps track the accuracy of students’ writing l Feedback given to students instantly, via easy to interpret visuals l Reduces teacher marking time and subjectivity when assessing writing l Provides trackable data on students’ performance, as well as metrics regarding their writing speed and accuracy. REVI EW BY ADAM RICHES Find out more at text.help/teachsec-april or by following @texthelp ✔ An exceptional tool for promoting self-efficacy in writing ✔ Useful for identifying gaps in writing ability ✔ Can massively reduce marking loads for teachers ✔ Provides teachers, leaders and students alike with intuitive and clear insights ✔ Builds students’ confidence and helps them overcome writing anxiety ✔ Delivers high quality feedback within seconds You are looking to build on the writing ability of students in your school. From what I’ve seen, the WriQMeter function makes it a particularly useful tool for boys. V E R D I C T U P G R A D E I F . . . WriQ