Electronic Grading System

May Help Students Write ‘Good’

By Eliza Hallabeck

Turning papers in to the teacher may soon take on a new form. Teachers in Newtown High School have started implementing the use of the Internet to control student’s plagiarism and use of grammar.

Candace Dietter, the chair of the Social Studies Department, said she first heard about the website from other teachers who had stumbled across it on the Internet. Originally the idea of using it as a teaching tool at NHS was thrown aside, because, she said, she did not want it to appear that plagiarism is a problem at NHS.

Then she attended a Connecticut Academic Performance Test (CAPT) program and a few teachers said they had been using it.

“I looked, and it is not a website that is about catching kids,” said Ms Dietter.

Ms Dietter said two teachers at least have been using Turnitin.com with their students so far this year at NHS. She said she hopes others in the school will find the website helpful in developing student’s written ability.

“I’m hoping it will be a writing tool for everyone in the building,” said Ms Dietter.

Every paper students submit to their teacher through the website is cross referenced with more than 12 billion web pages, 60 million-plus student papers, and more than 10,000 major newspapers, magazines and scholarly journals and thousands of books, which include literary classics and printable reports. Each work will also be checked for grammar errors and punctuation. The website will automatically inform the students of where they could have been clearer, or where they could have used a different word, phrase, or punctuation mark.

“I’m hopeful that it will do more than discourage plagiarism,” said Ms Dietter.

Ms Dietter said she sees the website giving students further direction in their writing, and hopes it will help them write well outside of the their writing-based courses.

Turnitin.com shows proper citation by showing students where they can improve their writing, and uses standardized editing marks to help the teachers quicken the traditional red ink grading system. Teachers can submit comments and correct a student’s work through the website. It also allows teachers the ability to decide if they want to create a student-based editing group, which allows students to view other’s papers and remark on them.

Ms Dietter, who is working on a thesis at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, said one of her professors uses a paperless system to grade her work, and she really appreciates it.

“I’ve been trying to move away from [having students turn in physical papers] anyway,” said Ms Dietter. “I’ve been asking them to send them in online.”

As the chair for the English Department at NHS, Jeanetta Miller said plagiarism is infrequent, but it does happen on rare occasions.

“I was thoroughly impressed by the amount of material covered [by the site],” said Ms Miller.

Ms Miller said she has not yet implemented the use of Turnitin.com with her students, but she has looked through the website to see how it will help improve student’s writing capability.

“This is all very new for us,” said Ms Miller.