Is it possible to have a crush on a Web site?
I just discovered NoRedInk.com — thanks Jeff & Kristin!! — and I am smitten.
Kids online, logging in hours of practice with spelling, punctuation, and grammar. Oh my!
I was fortunate enough to get to listen/watch a recorded Webinar with the founder of the company, so I got to hear a little about the evolution of the site. I understood him to be saying that, as a teacher, he was looking for a better way of dealing with the time-consuming effort of "low-level"grading (vs. working with students on their ideas, arguments, etc.), as well as how to see improvement in student performance with the mechanics of writing, which, despite the repeated marking of errors on papers, really needs to be addressed by practice.
It brings to mind that notion that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to master something.
So now there is a FREE Web site that lets kids do just that with commonly confused words, commas, sentence fragments and run-ons, apostrophes, subject/verb agreement, etc. Did I mention it's free?!
There are so many super-useful features of this site for teachers, such as quiz creation and data analysis, that I would begin to feel as though I'm writing an advertisement if I were to try to detail them. Take the time to check it out for yourself. And let me know if it's not love at first site (ha, ha) for you, too.
