Digital tools to help students and their teachers learn and teach writing are invaluable in the digital era. They can enrich lessons and deepen student engagement. Here are seven top tools that have the potential to transform the way schools approach writing instruction.
1. Grammarly
Unlike your standard spell checker, Grammarly doesn’t just underline mistakes in your writing; its suggestions take into account the intent of your sentences and make your prose more powerful and precise.
This tool can be a godsend to any student when writing essays or reports, as Grammarly is a grammar sat-nav that doesn’t sneer at you – it just provides constructive suggestions and keeps you on the straight and narrow.
That said, sometimes, a digital writing assistant falls short. It lacks human touch and understanding. In cases like these, get Top Essay Writing assistance with your studies. It can enhance your writing and help secure good grades.
2. Google Docs
Google Docs is the Swiss Army knife of writing tools; its collaboration features are a boon in classroom settings, as they allow multiple users to work on one document at the same time.
Teachers can comment in real-time, too, making for an excellent environment for drafting, and its autosave feature helps eliminate the dangers of the dreaded computer failures as well as the infamous “my dog ate my homework” situations.
3. Hemingway Editor
The Hemingway Editor really makes your prose bold. Named after the writer Ernest Hemingway, who was known for his economy of prose, this tool provides users with suggestions on how to write more forcefully by highlighting places with unnecessary passive voice, adverbs, and overly long run-on sentences.
It really helps make an essay or report as punchy as possible so that the main points are not lost in the thicket of words.
4. Evernote
Evernote is a great digital notebook for students and teachers alike. It’s a perfect tool for organizing research, drafting, and saving notes in one place which is accessible from any device. Since it syncs easily across devices, drafts can be started on a laptop and finished on a phone or tablet just a few minutes before heading into class.
5. Microsoft Word
It’s an oldie but a goodie. Microsoft Word is so familiar to most of us that it could easily be a staple throughout school. With its Researcher tool that helps you find good sources, quote credibly, and cite them, Word almost curates and formats your paper for you.
6. Scrivener
Scrivener is an excellent tool for students, especially those tackling complex writing projects. It helps with the following:
- Organization: Helps organize lengthy writing projects and keep track of extensive information efficiently.
- Centralization: Keeps all project-related information in one place, preventing it from being scattered across multiple documents.
- Research: Perfect for older students working on intricate research papers that require detailed planning.
- Creative Writing: Aids in structuring and organizing creative writing assignments, helping bring imaginative ideas to life systematically.
7. ProWritingAid
While some of the corrections that ProWritingAid gives to your text are related to grammar, many more of its suggestions are meant to help you think about how to make your writing more expressive, forceful, and readable. ProWritingAid can be your personal coach, forcing you to run that extra 100 yards to reach your personal best.
Summing Up
Using these tools can help students improve their writing skills, providing timely, actionable feedback and helping them develop a stronger, more formidable voice. Depending on the individual tool, that could be anything from real-time editing in Google Docs to assistance with the structural organization of writing in Scrivener.
When schools integrate digital tools into their students’ everyday lives, they can make education more enjoyable, improving the quality of students’ writing in the process. So, why not give these tools a try? Integrate the ones that work with your pedagogical objectives and watch your students become better writers!
