Tag Archive for 'teaching tools'

Beyond Plagiarism Checking: A User’s Take on GradeMark

Published on July 27, 2010 in GradeMark. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Many Turnitin users that have access to GradeMark are not aware of what an essential, powerful and effective tool it can be.

Cath Ellis, an English literature instructor, blogger, and e-learning enthusiast, recently wrote on her blog about how merely checking for potential plagiarism is such a minor part of her use. She expounds on her use of GradeMark and the benefits of being quicker, better, easier, and retrievable. Her students prefer their papers being reviewed in GradeMark because of the confidentiality, accessibility, and convenience that Turnitin provides.

She goes further in explaining the analytical aspects of GradeMark including the rubrics and reporting that allow her to better target particular skills that need further development.

Read more of Cath Ellis’s thoughts on using Turnitin at her blog:
http://cathellis13.blogspot.com/2010/07/beyond-plagiarism-checking-exploiting.html

Engaging Students with Turnitin

Published on May 12, 2010 in Plagiarism. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Engaging StudentsTurnitin’s tagline is, “Prevent Plagiarism. Engage Students.” We get a lot of comments via our Blog, Twitter, and through other outlets about how Turnitin engages students.

Instructors and students are most familiar with the Turnitin Originality Checking part of the service. The originality reports provide an opportunity for instructors to connect with students to show them proper citation, to identify motivations for improper citation, and to address academic integrity. In other words, it gives instructors a teaching moment.

The PeerMark peer review service allows students to evaluate and learn from one another’s work. PeerMark provides an opportunity for students to develop critical thinking and writing skills through collaboration.

The GradeMark paperless grading service empowers instructors to give students meaningful and legible feedback, not confined to red ink scrawled in the margins of a paper. By providing richer feedback, students can better apply that feedback to their writing.

With Turnitin, there are new opportunities to engage students, better ways to involve them in the writing process, better ways to help them internalize what they are taught. Learn more about engaging students through our WriteCycle Academy series of webinars. Sign up for a live webinar or download previously recorded sessions at:
http://turnitin.com/static/writecycle_academy.html

How do you engage your students with Turnitin? Share your story in the comments section.

Don’t have PeerMark or GradeMark activated yet? Talk to your Turnitin account administrator and let them know you want it!

Social Media in Higher Ed

Published on May 10, 2010 in Plagiarism. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Over 80 percent of college faculty are using social media according to a survey released by Babson Survey Research Group in collaboration with New Marketing Labs and Pearson Learning Solutions on May 4th, 2010. The study found that a majority of respondents (59%) said they have more than one social networking account and nearly 25 percent have four or more accounts. Thirty percent of respondents use social networks to communicate with students, and 1/3 use them to connect with peers.

“College faculty have embraced social media and a majority have integrated some form of these tools into their teaching,” said Jeff Seaman, Ph.D., co-director of the Babson Survey Research Group. “While some faculty remain skeptical, the overall opinion is quite positive, with faculty reporting that social media has value for teaching by over a four to one margin.”

You may be saying, “but I’m too old for this social media stuff.” Not true! There were only small differences in usage based on age, stage in career, gender, tenure status, or device ownership.

Pearson Social Media Survey 2010

We’ve recently jumped into the social media scene ourselves. We launched a few Twitter accounts (@turnitin and @WriteCycle for instructors and administrators, and @WriteCheck for students) where we share relevant information related to Turnitin, PeerMark, GradeMark, and hot topics on education. We’re also developing an engaging user community, so stay tuned for updates.

References:
Chmura, M. (May 4, 2010). Sociable Professors. Retrieved May 5, 2010, from http://www3.babson.edu/Newsroom/Releases/socialmediafaculty.cfm.
Levy, J., Seaman, J., Tinti-Kane, H. (n.d.). Social Media in Higher Education: The Survey. Retrieved May, 5, 2010, from http://www.slideshare.net/PearsonLearningSolutions/pearson-socialmediasurvey2010.

Announcing Turnitin2 – Coming in September

Published on May 6, 2010 in WriteCycle. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , , , .

Turnitin2 SchematicThanks to our customers’ suggestions and ideas, Turnitin will soon be better than ever. We are pleased to announce that in September 2010, we are launching a new version of our solution called Turnitin2 (previously announced as WriteCycle2).

For the first time, users will enjoy a solution with full integration of our three essential instructional support tools: OriginalityCheck plagiarism prevention, PeerMark peer reviewing and GradeMark paperless grading. This integration is a major step in providing a productivity-enhancing “all-in-one” perspective of students’ work.

With Turnitin2, you will:

  • Work with a single, “all-in-one” view of a student’s paper in its original format, including styled text, graphics and photos.
  • Save time and increase productivity with improved tools and a unified user interface.
  • View feedback from all sources in one comprehensive, multi-layered view.
  • Maintain academic integrity and engage students in their development as learners.

Current Turnitin and WriteCycle customers in English and Spanish will automatically experience the Turnitin2 improvements when they log in. Additional versions in our ten other supported languages are in development and will be announced as the dates become available.

Download the Turnitin2 Flyer for more details

Turnitin WriteCycle Among Favorite eLearning Tools

Published on April 16, 2010 in Plagiarism. 3 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Turnitin WriteCycle’s PeerMark and GradeMark tools are listed in eLearn Magazine’s feature article “eLearning Tools for English Composition: 30 New Media Tools and Web Sites for Writing Teachers” by college instructor Keri Bjorklund. She writes:

“Want to get students away from simply commenting on grammatical or punctuation errors? They can conduct in-depth peer reviews using Turnitin [which] provides peer review questions that link critical thinking skills with writing skills. You can even create your own questions and require a minimum word count for students. This keeps down the yes/no answers and forces them to think about the essay in front of them.”

“Timely feedback is fundamental to student success, but for it to be effective, it must also be efficient. When it comes to responding to student writing, the following tools are huge assets to instructors. And when used in combination, they can transform mundane grading into interactive and powerful teachable moments.”

“Turnitin.com [offers a complete suite] of tools [Turnitin WriteCycle] for plagiarism checking, peer review [PeerMark], grading [GradeMark], and more (price quotes available upon request). Originally an anti-plagiarism site, Turnitin has evolved into an indispensible teaching and grading tool. Students upload essays, check the originality of their content against a database of papers, and learn how to avoid plagiarism. It’s also an electronic grading tool and a valuable resource for teaching citation and research. Peer review is another option that electronically disperses essays to students.”

“GradeMark [is a] paperless grading tool that’s part of WriteCycle [. . .] and it’s a tool I cannot live without. Simply drag and drop comments in any essay, quickly create and save personalized comments, create rubrics, or incorporate tools already available in GradeMark. It cut my grading time in half.”

Read about all of her other favorite tools in the article “eLearning Tools for English Composition: 30 New Media Tools and Web Sites for Writing Teachers” in eLearn Magazine.

References
Bjorklund, K. (2010 March 30). eLearning tools for English composition: 30 new media tools and web sites for writing teachers.” eLearn Magazine. Retrieved from http://elearnmag.org/subpage.cfm?section=best_practices&article=67-1.