Skip to main content

NoRedInk

This week I decided to research NoRedInk a little bit. Our regular education ELA classes use this website in their classrooms, and I have been meaning to look into it a little more. NoRedInk is an online program, free and premium versions available, where students can practice various skills as they relate to English Language Arts. 


Summary of reading: 

I found a dissertation titled, Exploring the Use of NoRedInk as a Tool for Composition Instruction written by Alyson Snowe. Her dissertation is 211 pages, so admittedly I didn’t read it cover to cover, but I was particularly interested in the 5th chapter: Students respond to NoRedInk. In her paper, Snowe notes that all students with the exception of one was able to make progress on their grammar skills. I also enjoyed reading the comments the students made on the program, and they said they wish NoRedInk would add an audio component that will read feedback aloud to you when you get something wrong. 


The appeal: 

I have no problem admitting my deficiencies, and one of them has to be teaching grammar. It is hard, students hate it, and it is very confusing. There are so many rules and exceptions to the rules it is challenging for me to keep everything straight (which truthfully, I struggle with). In examining NoRedInk, I can see the appeal. It has lessons for everything grammar related you can think of. It is interactive for the students, and self paced. This is where I can try and make a connection to my ELL students along with my special education students. In Snowe’s article the student who didn’t make any progress commented that he had a lot of work to do on his grammar since he had very little background knowledge. This makes me think this program might not be the perfect fit for students who traditionally struggle with reading and writing. I also read a few excerpts from the website and articles that were published that said that students reported a positive reaction to the fact that the program is self-paced and they didn’t feel rushed. Since this is something we are currently using in our schools, I do feel the self paced aspect is a positive for our students who may struggle more. 


The plan: 

I plan to do a test run with NoRedInk in my classroom and see how it goes with all of my students. I have a variety of ability levels in my class, but all have some sort of disability. I am interested to see how a program like this will work with my population, especially if there isn’t that audio feedback option. 


Source: 

Snowe, Alyson, "Exploring the Use of NoRedInk as a Tool for Composition Instruction" (2017). Open Access Dissertations. Paper 627.

https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/oa_diss/627

Comments

  1. UnknownOctober 30, 2021 at 2:36 PM

    Thanks for sharing. I have always heard about No Red Ink as well and have wanted to look more into myself. I teach math but we are required to collect samples of student writing each marking period. Even in 7th grade they seem to completely disregard punctuation and grammar conventions. It would be nice to have a resource for students to work on writing skills to improve the quality of their writing math.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

To Flip or not to Flip

The Article:  This week brought me back to Google scholar to find an article that would interest me. The article I landed on was Exploring the Impact of Blended, Flipped, and Traditional Teaching Strategies for Teaching Grammar on Iranian EFL Learners by Farzaneh Khodabandeh and Mohammad Hassan Tahririan. This was another 41 page article, so I skimmed through the article and tried to make sense of the information presented.  The Summary:  The article was a study to compare the different types of teaching in an online class setting. In the article they compared the flipped classroom to the blended learning environment and the traditional learning environment. There was a pretest and post test of grammar skills. In the Traditionally taught group, there wasn’t a significant difference between the pretest and the post test. On the other hand in the blended and flipped classroom there was a significant improvement between the two tests. So which method was the best? Well, when...
3 comments
Read more

Augmented Reality Gaming in the classroom

I have gone easy on myself this week and the article I have chosen was only 6 pages! Even though it was a much shorter article than the others I have read so far for class, it was just as beneficial. This article was titled, “Augmented Reality Game(ARG), 21st Century Skills and ESL classroom.” A few things popped into my head as I read the title. One, I love augmented reality games, so I’m sure students will too. And two, I haven’t heard 21st century skills pop up in my PD sessions on inservice days in a while. It seems that while we are still teaching students the skills to be a 21st century learner the buzz word might be fizzling out.  The Summary:  In the Article Karmila Rafiq and Harwati Hashim talk about the success ARG has with ESL students. The article discussed an example of ARG which was Pokemon Go. The authors explain that games like these allow the user to gain real world skills by using maps, books, and tools. The article discussed the lack of real world skills peo...
2 comments
Read more

The beginning and Effective strategies

    This week I was scouring the internet for some interesting reads, to try and wrap my head around starting this blog. As I was exploring blogs of differing genres, I realized the ones I gravitated toward were the "easy reads." Something light, but still worth reading. I also very much enjoy when I read something that directly relates to my content, or something I can easily try in my classroom. That is going to be my goal for this Blog. I will try to make it interesting, so you may read it quickly, and hopefully be able to take something away from it in the end.  My research took me to a 63 page document this week in addition to the readings for class, so needless to say I have been very tired. While I didn't read the document in its entirety, Informing Educators on Effective Strategies for LTELs by Maria Soto taught me about LTELs. LTELs stands for Long Term English Learners, and in her paper, Maria explains that LTELs are often looked upon in frustration for their l...
2 comments
Read more