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I Can Write Online
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For Teachers
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Research
I Can Write Online uses the best of the writing research as well as proven instructional design elements for children's software, including:
Results of a Usability Study (Zhu, 2004) conducted with students in Grades 3 and 5 who used the I Can Write Online prototype. Students:
Found the software to be intuitive and user friendly.
Found auditory directions very helpful.
Spent more time on drafting and prewriting than other steps, but also spent significant time on revising and editing.
Used revision tools, such as "Editor's Checklist" extensively throughout their writing.
Preferred writing on the computer to writing manually.
An Evaluation of the Effects of Online Writing Process Software on the Quality of Student Writing. In a quasi-experimental comparison study in a second grade class in Georgia, (Clarisse & Harper, 2007), the experimental group used I Can Write Online all year, while the control group used a teacher guided strategy for teaching the writing compares the gains made by each group between 9/1/2006 and 6/1/2007:
| |
Increase in use of ideas for writing |
Increase in writing scores on Georgia Writing Assessment |
| Experimental Group |
308% |
79% |
| Control Group |
224% |
69% |
Informal field tests (no citation) with hundreds of students in Greenville County, South Carolina and Cherokee County Georgia who used I Can Write Online for a full semester. Feedback from teachers and students revealed that:
Students' motivation to write increased.
Found auditory directions very helpful
Students wrote better-organized pieces.
Reluctant writers wrote longer and more organized stories.
Action Research Using South Carolina Palmetto Achievement Challenge Tests as measure of writing achievement. A South Carolina school used I Can Write Online for three straight years. The results are shown in the chart below. As you can see, the number of students in the proficient and advanced stages rose significantly during the 2006 academic year. At the same time, the number of students in the Basic and Below Basic groups fell significantly.
Evaluation Report - A Service Learning Project of the University of Georgia was conducted by a team of 6 Instructional Technology graduate students under the direction of Dr. Tom Reeves, internationally recognized software program evaluator in an elementary school in Georgia. Ten teachers and 210 students (Grades 2-6) provided information through teacher interviews, teacher online surveys, classroom observations and student questionnaires. The students were distributed in the following manner:
Findings related to teachers were:
90% of the teachers say the software fits their existing curriculum goals
70% of the teachers say the software can be easily integrated into their regular language arts curriculum
90% of teachers say the software motivates their students to write
Teachers particularly like the step by step procedure the software uses as well as the graphic organizers
Teachers were concerned about the need for more computers and more time to use the writing software. ICWO creators recommend twice a week usage that most teachers were able to have, but many teachers wanted to use the software 3 or 4 times a week.
Findings related to students were:
The majority of the 210 students reported they felt the software was "fun and easy" to use.
Students particularly like being able to choose their own topics as well as being able to choose their own borders for publishing. They liked the professional look of their printed writing.
In terms of improving their writing, on a scale of 1 - 4.5, students reported a mean score of 4.03 with fourth and fifth graders reporting 4.12 and 4.13 respectively.
In terms of interest in the software (which was originally designed for 3rd - 5th grades) students rating of the software on a scale of 1-5 was quite high:
3rd grade - 4.14
4th grade 4.45
5th grade - 4.36
References
Zhu, Li (2004) Jump start to writing: a usability testing study. The University of Georgia: Athens, GA.
Clarisse, H. & E. Harper (2007) An Evaluation of the effects of an online writing process software on the quality of student writing: Ball Ground, GA.
Informal field tests (no citation) Feedback from teachers and students in hundreds of schools in Florida, Georgia, Japan, South Carolina, Washington State.
Action Research (2004-2006) Using palmetto achievement challenge test to measure writing progress: Grades 3, 4, and 5. Tigerville, SC.
Choi, Ahram, et al. (2008) Evaluation Report: Service Learning Project of the University of Georgia: Athens, GA.
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