with Technology: A Practical Guide for Teachers, by Teachers:
1.The easiest way to comment in a student=92s paper is by inserting bold
text. Your comments will stand out from the rest of the paper, and you
can switch to boldface just by pressing Control-B. If you want to be
certain that students can tell their text from your comments, you can
also put your boldface comments in parentheses, (like this).
2. Another simple tool for marking up papers online, common to most
word processors, is the highlighter, which colors the background of
text much like a real highlighter. The highlighter works well for
marking grammar and style errors in essay drafts. If the error is
simple enough for students to figure out the problem, the highlighter
gives them a chance to solve it. If the error requires some
explanation, go back to using the bold text.
3. Another option for making distinctive comments is the Font Color
button, which in Word looks like a capitalized =93A=94 with a bar of color
below it. You could use different colored text for different types of
comments, though all the clicking and selecting is time consuming. We
tend to not use this tool in favor of the boldface, mostly because it
is so much easier and fast to just hit Control-B (Command-B on a Mac)
then doing all the clicking, and boldface stands out as well as red or
blue font.
=09
4. Microsoft Word: AutoCorrect -- Go to the AutoCorrect Options in
Word and look for the windows that say Replace and With. Put the
offending spelling in the Replace box and the correct spelling in the
With box, and click OK. From then on, Word will make the change for
you.
While AutoCorrect was designed to fix spelling errors, there is no
reason you can=92t use it to make typing easier. For instance, you can
tell Word to change =93pgh=94 into =93paragraph,=94 and =93pghs=92 into
=93paragraphs=94 as the first step towards letting you use something like
a secretarial shorthand when typing. To take this a step further, you
can also program your ten or twenty most common comments into the
AutoCorrect. (Don=92t you wish you had a dollar for every time you typed
=93this sentence is too vague,=94 or =93you need more details here!=94)
Example; ts1 =3D "Your topic sentences set a clear and purposeful
direction for each paragraph."
Assignment-specific comments could be deleted after the assignment.
Say you have assigned a documents-based essay to fifty students and
you have a good sense of which documents will give students difficulty
and why. In advance of correcting the essays you might then set up
some Auto-correct comments that explain to the students why they might
have misinterpreted this or that document. You could even correct the
essay with pen and paper and just create a Word page for Auto-correct
comments.
Tom
On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 6:48 AM, Adrian Hoad-Reddick <hoad@hoadworks.com> w=
rote:
> Dear Colleagues,
>
>
>
> I am interested to know what text markup tools teachers find helpful in
> digitally marking essays and other written assignments. Are there good to=
ols
> out there to facilitate English teacher marking?
>
>
>
> I have developed a rudimentary Word template that allows teachers to sele=
ct
> text and easily insert comments based on 30 common syntax/grammar errors =
and
> that subsequently allows the student to click on any comment and be direc=
ted
> to web pages that comment on the error and how to fix it (example here:
> http://www.bookhooks.com/runon.cfm?errornum=3D1).
>
>
>
> I don't want to reinvent the wheel if robust software exists. Your
> suggestions are welcome! And please hurry. I have 43 Gatsby essays in the
> queue. :-)
>
>
>
> Regards,
>
> Adrian
>
> Adrian Hoad-Reddick
> Head of English
> Director, School for Young Writers
> Teacher, Upper School English, Media & Technology
> St. John's-Kilmarnock School
> 2201 Shantz Station Road
> Breslau, ON N0B1M0
>
> ahoad@sjkschool.org
>
>
> <file:///C:\Documents%20and%20Settings\Adrian\My%20Documents\SJKEmailFoot=
er.
> gif>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> [ For info on ISED-L see https://www.gds.org/podium/default.aspx?t=3D1288=
74 ]
> Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons, attribution,=
non-commercial, share-alike license.
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>
--=20
Tom Daccord
Co-Director, EdTechTeacher
Chestnut Hill, MA
tom@edtechteacher.org
http://edtechteacher.org/
http://besthistorysites.net/
twitter: thomasdaccord
c: 617-455-8716
Best Ideas for Teaching with Technology: A Practical Guide for
Teachers, by Teachers (ME Sharpe Press)
Best of History Web Sites (Neal Schuman)
[ For info on ISED-L see https://www.gds.org/podium/default.aspx?t=3D128874 ]
Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons, attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.
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