BoomWriter Launches 'PRO' To Help Teachers Assess Writing Skills

MILTON, Mass., Sept. 24, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- BoomWriter Media today announced the release of a new premium suite of features for teachers called PRO, which includes numerous features for educators to better assess students' writing skills.  Included in PRO is the Gradebook tool, enabling teachers to utilize Common Core-based rubrics to assess students' performance and monitor their growth in specific areas of writing.  BoomWriter is an educational technology website with free group-writing tools for teachers to help students develop and enhance writing, reading, vocabulary, and peer assessment skills across all curriculum areas.  

Gradebook gives teachers the ability to assign grades for students' entries written on BoomWriter's group-writing tools ProjectWriter and WordWriter.  Teachers can opt to choose from a variety of rubrics aligned with the Common Core State Writing Standards and select from various grade levels to meet their students' needs.  Gradebook offers rubrics for Narrative, Argument/Opinion, and Informative/Explanatory writing that are then subdivided into three grade groupings: Upper Elementary (3-5), Middle (6-8), and High School (9-12). Teachers can also opt to select a one-skill rubric to grade students on the overall quality of their piece.  All the rubrics function on a four-point grading scale and are color-coded for easy assessment.

"Our Gradebook feature provides teachers with an easier and more granular method for determining students' writing performance before they then use this information as either a formative or summative assessment," said Ken Haynes, BoomWriter COO.

Teachers who use BoomWriter PRO also have private access to comprehensive scoring data within the site's closed digital environment, for their class as a whole and for individual students, via Gradebook's embedded "Reports" functionality.  Reports allow teachers to easily assess the scores for their class on their most recent project for a specific rubric, with scores then broken down for each individual skill.  All performance data is color-coded, and students' progress over time for each individual skill is also conveniently displayed.  Teachers can review each student's entry from Reports, as well as click to see a more comprehensive overview report of an individual student's grades and progress.  

"BoomWriter is an awesome teaching tool that my students love using," said Emily Leonard, a 3rd Grade classroom teacher in Brookline, Mass. "And now with Gradebook, I can easily score their work in specific skill areas of writing and monitor their progress."

The BoomWriter PRO premium suite is available to all registered teachers for $2.99 per month, with a one-month free trial.  The premium features are in addition to BoomWriter's free collaborative edtech tools—StoryWriter (creative/narrative writing), WordWriter (vocabulary), and new ProjectWriter (expository/argument/scientific writing), which are powered by the unique and simple idea that everyone writes, everyone reads and everyone votes.  BoomWriter is ideal for grades 2-12, a variety of student learners, and can be easily integrated into existing curriculum for various subjects, such as English Language Arts, History/Social Studies, Science, and more.

About BoomWriter
BoomWriter is an educational technology product of BoomWriter Media, Inc., a leading provider of online collaborative writing solutions.  Used by educators, students, and writers of all skill levels, BoomWriter Media's social platform is designed for anyone who wants to write and build stories in a community.  BoomWriter Media has delivered more than 2.5 million projects and is used in over 25,000 classrooms, across more than 60 countries. For more information about BoomWriter, please visit www.boomwriter.com.

SOURCE BoomWriter Media

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