Thanks goodness for digital technology

The analysis of the children's writing in as much detail as I require to deliver an intervention targeted at the root of this inquiry would not have been possible prior to the move to a digital learning environment. Why? Keep reading.......

There are never enough hours in the day as a teacher and if I had to re-type every piece of writing that the children had hand written, before using Antword Profiler to analyse the vocabulary used, I would not have been able to do this, it would taken too much time and not have been time efficient.

Thanks goodness for digital technology. 

Not only was this part of the analysis enabled through the use of digital technology but also the next part of the analysis as well. Imagine having to go through each piece of writing and count the number of words that appear in list 1, list 2 and so on through to list 8.   After that I would have had to count up the times that each word was repeated etc.  Time efficient, definitely not! Once again this intervention would  not have been possible without the move to a digital environment.

This is just the beginning of an exciting inquiry and the data that I have been able to gather and analyse to further inform my direction has only been made possible through a digital learning environment.

Digital Analysis Hiccup

Over the past few weeks I have been comparing a few vocabulary analysis digital tools to see which will be the best fit for my inquiry.

I have come across an awesome tool developed by Laurence Anthony called Antword Profiler. This piece of software is going to provide me with an in depth analysis of the children's writing that I will be able to use to inform my quantitative data in the initial stage. 

How does Antword Profiler work? Click on the link Antword Profiler to find out more about the tool.

I have had to adapt the tool to suit my inquiry as the lists that were developed to work in this programme were not going to be specific enough to enable me to see detailed movement in the progress of my children's writing throughout the inquiry. What does this mean? 

I had to create and import the Essential Word Lists 1-8 to use as a guideline as these are the lists that we use to teach spelling in my class.  - By the end of Y2 children should be expected to know all the words in List 1-2 , the end of Y4 - Lists 1-4, the end of Y6 - Lists 1-6, the end of Y8 Lists 1-7. In some cases children will have mastered all these words at an earlier stage. There will also be words that are not on these lists.

Antword did not work well with apostrophes, so on the lists I  collapsed or expanded those words eg. can’t is now cant etc but we’re is weare, I’m is Iam I’ll is Iwill and It’s is itis. Instances of these need to be modified in the child’s text before I load it into Antword.

Just a slight hiccup but easily solved.