District/School Administration PK-16 Program Support
Educational Technology

Department Receives Grant to Develop Online Writing Tool

The Massachusetts Department of Education has been awarded a federal grant (through the Steppingstones of Technology Innovation for Children with Disabilities program) for Online Writing Assistance for All, a two-year project to develop and test an online tool designed to improve middle school students' writing. This project was one of 12 selected from 88 applicants.

The Department's partner in developing the new tool will be CAST, an organization that is nationally known for its work in supporting all learners according to their individual strengths and needs. Once the writing tool has been successfully tested, it will be available to all Massachusetts schools through the state's education portal, MassONE, where it will be called the "MassONE Writer."

The MassONE Writer will include a number of supports for writing strategies. Animated characters will remind the student of critical features of the writing process and provide examples demonstrating the features. The MassONE Writer will also model strategies students can use to plan, organize, write, revise and edit their work. Checklists will be used to help the student monitor their writing for essential content and critical mechanics. The MassONE Writer will also support collaborative writing by allowing groups of peers to read and comment on each others' work.

To support the teacher, the MassONE Writer will include progress monitoring tools. Probes of student writing will be administered periodically throughout the writing program. Results will be graphically displayed so that teachers and students can monitor progress in writing at both the mechanics and content levels. Teachers will be able to analyze these data to determine if and what interventions and instruction may be required.

Participating in the research and testing phase of this project will be middle schools in Springfield and Taunton, which received technology grants this year from the Department for one-to-one laptop computer programs. Teachers and students will use the product and provide feedback during the development process so that the product can be improved.