Our latest thoughts from the world of technology in education & the workplace

Texthelp Blog - Our latest thoughts from the world of technology in education & the workplace

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Are you a Read&Write and/ or EquatIO customer? 

Have you embraced educational technology in the classroom, but unsure how to encourage your students to use it on their own time or for revision? 

Throughout our Back To School blog series, we will explore various themes that matter most to you (the teacher), and demonstrate how our technology can help you think differently about your lesson planning, through the software that your school has invested in. 

We’re firm believers in developing technology that fosters independence for all students. We’re sure you would agree that students have to play their own role in their learning - both in and outside of the classroom. 

But if students have the tech support they need in the classroom, they should also have the same support for their own independent study, including revision activities. 

We have a few ideas on how Read&Write and EquatIO can be used during your students’ own study… 

Read&Write: The highlighter tools on the Read&Write toolbar allow information to be highlighted using any colour/s of choice, which can be collected at a touch of a button in a separate document. This feature can be used to create useful resources like vocabulary lists or research documents, or even as a tool to complete fun, independent activities.

For the teacher, you can create useful resources for extended reading by highlighting information on the web and collecting the content in a document, which you can share with students. The highlight and collect feature automatically pulls in the source link (in addition to the other information highlighted), so students can view the original webpage for further reading.

You can also have your students use this feature to put a new, colourful spin on existing activities. For example, ask students to read a piece of text and highlight all verbs in green and adjectives in yellow. Or, in a book reading exercise, ask students to highlight what character said which quotes or to sort the statements into relevant themes. Finally, ask students to highlight points in their written work that strengthen their argument or sympathise with the opposition.

EquatIO: Using EquatIO mathspace to create visuals for maths comprehension

EquatIO mathspace is more than a feature, it’s a central storage space that allows you to create and save maths activities that you can share directly with your students. Think of it as a giant digital whiteboard where you can present a mathematical problem to every student at once, and have them work through it at their own pace before submitting their answers - just like a virtual classroom. 

Using EquatIO mathspace, there are a number of ways to create engaging maths tasks for independent learning.

Use the Shapes Input to create maths manipulatives instantly on your mathspace board. Choose from ready-made visuals such as fraction bars, coins or cars to ask your students to solve anything from simple division to working through economic scenarios or physics concepts.

Create interactive activities using EquatIO’s Smart Shapes, which include grids, fraction circles, number lines and digital protractors. These could be shared for homework or revision exercises. 

If you find these activity examples useful, check out our dedicated Back to School resource page for other handy hints and tips to help you get the most out of Read&Write and/ or EquatIO. 

We’re also running live webinars for each of our Back to School blog series themes. If you would like to learn more about how our technology can help support independent study and revision, sign up to Richard & Anna’s ‘How Read&Write can improve research, study skills and organisation for all students’ webinar taking place on Wednesday 2nd October 2019 from 3:45- 4:15pm. 

Lastly, if you would like to share how you use Read&Write or EquatIO in your classroom, feel free to add your ideas to the comments section below. 

Have you embraced educational technology in the classroom, but are unsure how to encourage your students to use it on their own time, and for revision? In this blog, we’ve pulled together some ideas that can help improve technology use for independent study and revision.

Back to School: Tools for independent study & revision

Back to School: Are you improving independent study and revision with our technology?

In this fourth blog in our Back to School series, we’ve pulled together some ideas that can help improve technology use for independent study and revision.

In this fifth blog in our Back to School series, we’re discussing how you can make a few simple administrative changes to Read&Write to offer assistive/ reasonable adjustment support in assessments.  

Back to School: Here’s how Read&Write can be used in exams

Read&Write is more than an accessibility tool and a purple puzzle piece that sits on your network computers! Its features can revolutionise literacy within your classroom - and we want you and your students to make the most of the features on offer. 

Throughout our Back To School blog series, we will explore various themes that matter most to you (the teacher) and demonstrate how the software that your school has invested in can help you think differently about your lesson planning. 

Think back to when you were in school. How was your writing encouraged in English lessons? From the days of joined-up handwriting in Primary School to creative storytelling and writing in Secondary School, we didn’t have the same tech support offered in today’s digital age. However, tech support can be a huge help when it comes to writing. 

In a recent independent study, students using Read&Write showed an average increase in writing scores.

Prediction and dictionaries are essential for writing progression. Prediction, in particular, aids with sentence structure and writing fluency. And with a dictionary as an additional support, vocabulary knowledge can be expanded and called upon. 

Let's take a look into the Read&Write features that can specifically support writing in more detail. 

Talk&Type turns the spoken word into text by enabling students to dictate into a microphone. Speech to text empowers students to get their thoughts down in writing, which can then be reviewed and proof-read by other features of Read&Write, like Text-to-Speech and Check It, to help catch errors.

Prediction suggests word options, helping students craft longer, more complex sentences to enrich their written work. It’s really helpful for EAL students and reluctant learners.

Our advanced spell checker, Check It, helps students refine their own work by reviewing writing for spelling, grammar, and homophone errors. Students can even use Text-to-Speech within Check It to hear the word and its definition read aloud to help them identify an alternative.

Finally, the Dictionary and Picture Dictionary can be great for students getting to grips with new words, especially if they’re learning English.

Here are a few examples of how you can incorporate these Read&Write features into your day-to-day writing activities.

Use a number of our Read&Write features in an English Literacy Lesson Plan 

Select a book (in a digital format) and have Read&Write read out a chapter of focus. 

Instruct learners to provide written answers to a number of associated questions. They can type their answers with the help of our written tools: 

Highlighters to collect information from the digital book and the internet 

Dictionaries for words they don’t understand  

By using the highlighters, encourage students to highlight words that they struggle with and create a Vocabulary list for better understanding

Ask them to create their own unique sentence for each word in the vocabulary list using Voice Note, Prediction or Talk&Type.

If you find these Read&Write activity examples useful, check out our dedicated Back to School resource page for other handy hints and tips to help you get the most out of Read&Write. 

We’re also running live webinars for each of our Back to School blog series themes. If you would like to learn more about how Read&Write can help boost writing support in your class, sign up to Richard & Anna’s ‘Using Read&Write to Support Writing’ webinar taking place on Monday 30th September 2019 from 3:45pm- 4:30pm. 

Lastly, if you would like to share how you use Read&Write in your classroom, feel free to add your ideas to the comments section below. 

In this blog, we’ve pulled together some of the main features within Read&Write that can help with writing support in your classroom.

Improve student writing with Read&Write

Back to School: Are you improving student writing with Read&Write?

In this second blog of our Back to School series, we’ve highlighted the main features of Read&Write that can help with student writing.

The list may include ‘Quality of Leadership and Management’; vision; passionate teachers and perhaps effective learning spaces. For others they’ll mention access to technology, creativity and collaboration, quality resources or parental engagement. It’s a long list and proof that there is no one ‘magic bullet’ to whole school success. 

It’s a combination of these, together with many other factors and dynamics that contribute to whole school success.

There’s one thing though that you’ll rarely hear on this list. The humble pencil case. Yes, the pencil case. Twenty years ago, a researcher at University College London suggested just this. At first glance, it’s hard to see the potential impact of something so simple. Think deeper though and it starts to make sense. 

Building the right tools into that case can make a real difference - the tools that every student needs to enable and support their learning every day across every subject. The pencil - picking the right one is essential to help with handwriting development, selecting the correct grading is key for art and design class. 

Add to that the ballpoint pen and students end up with essential tools for writing, drawing and annotation. For literacy, for creativity and across any subject. Open up any pencil case though and you’ll find a wealth of tools - highlighters for study and research, eraser, colored pens and correction fluid. Then of course there’s subject specific tools like the compass and protractor. Everything needed in one place.

The point of course is that students have a set of tools plus the independence to use the right tool for them at the right time. Sure, they’ll need guidance, but at the heart of learning they're able to make decisions to suit their particular needs - across ages, subjects and the entirety of the curriculum. 

It’s true of course that at times there are more tools than are needed - the protractor is a case in point. That’s not going to come out in English class, and even in maths it won’t be out all the time. The fact though - it’s there, in the case, ready for when it’s appropriate and useful for learning.  

Fast forward 20 years from this study and education has changed. The widespread use of digital technology is making a huge impact across our schools, colleges and universities. Yet still, despite this shift the trusty pencil case with its range of tools is an essential part of every students life. 

So whilst we all focus on ‘moving to the cloud’, enabling 21st century skills, personalized learning and building new opportunities for learning, we shouldn’t forget that students need the digital equivalent of the pencil case - essential tools for learning in our digital world.

That’s where Texthelp has the solution for every student, school wide. Take Read&Write - in one location it provides all the tools students need for support and for learning. At first glance, you’ll discover text to speech. That’s great for Dyslexic students, right? Absolutely - it’s essential. But it’s also useful for the A Level student working towards a History exam, listening to questions to help understanding then listening to complex answers to proof and improve. Either of these students can take this one step further and use the Audiomaker tool - downloading an MP3 file of their notes - any subject, any content. Add our writing tools like prediction and Check It for help and support anywhere they are needed. The dictionary is right there too. Highlighter tools are great for study for summarizing notes, for researching or for simply drawing out key terms. 

Drama students can use these digital tools to identify lines, or even combine it with audiomaker for rehearsing dialog. An incredibly powerful tool is the vocab builder. EAL students use this across subjects to prep for classes in advance with new words, and we’ve seen students who study technology use this to identify and note lab equipment or signage. Chemists use it for chemical symbols to link them visually. All useful tools at any age, or across any subject.

Thinking back to the protractor and our EquatIO product that adds a dedicated set of maths tools to our ‘digital pencil case’. Specialist maths ‘pencils’ allow students to type, dictate or write on a touchscreen. Draw graphs without graph paper with Desmos and access manipulatives digitally. Physicists can easily draw and create circuit diagrams, lens or forces and chemists have access to express complex maths content easily. 

It doesn’t stop there of course - making a presentation for Business Studies? An essay for economics? Definitions sheet for geography? Equipped with Read&Write and EquatIO, students have the tools they need to succeed digitally.

Good practice and practical examples aside, Texthelp products are grounded in the principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL), providing every student with multiple means to express and engage with content - on their terms, and in a way that suits them. It’s a framework that promotes and enables inclusion. 

You see, we don’t think of the traditional pencil case as something that’s there for students with individual needs - it has inclusion built in as standard. So why not think of amazing digital tools like Read&Write or EquatIO in the same way? They may be necessary for some, but they are useful for all. We know that the pencil case and our tools can be and are used by every student including those with high ability, those studying for exams, those that are creative, or those that rarely ask for help in the middle of your classrooms.

It’s vital that digital tools are used in a meaningful and relevant way to be effective, and at Texthelp we want to help educators and students explore our tools, and be empowered to use them every day across every subject. 

So let’s equip students with the tools and skills they need to be more independent, to find new and creative ways to learn and study more effectively. Our range of resources and support can help you achieve this and build Read&Write and EquatIO into your own recipe for success - for every student, regardless of age, level or ability and across every subject.   

At Texthelp we provide all the digital essentials, in one place and on any platform, giving everyone the opportunity to achieve more.   

Discover the digital tools/ features offered in Read&Write and EquatIO. We have made both FREE for teachers! This means you can get premium subscriptions to one or both of these products at no cost. If you’re interested in getting set up with a free teacher account for either product, click through to our dedicated Free for Teachers page.

There’s one thing though that you’ll rarely hear on this list. The humble pencil case.  Discover why there should be the digital equivalent to increase independence for all learners.

What is the recipe for success in schools?

Ask this question to any number of educators and my guess is you’ll receive some fairly consistent answers. Read on to discover why the humble pencil case may not, but should feature in the list of answers.

EquatIO isn’t a replacement for pencil and paper, but it compliments the classroom by making maths digital, which in turn can make it much more interactive, engaging and encourages greater creativity. 

With so many features and functionality, we want to make sure you and your students are making the most of what it has to offer. 

Did you have a good experience of maths in school? Or was it one of your weaker subjects, with the acceptance of just getting yourself through to that much needed pass mark during exam time? 

The digital age has brought all sorts of educational technology into the classroom, but with maths being a slightly different language to digitise, technology in the maths classroom has dramatically lagged behind. 

EquatIO has revolutionised this. We’re working with many teachers to come up with ideas on how best to incorporate this new technology into the classroom, some of which we’d like to share with you below. 

Use EquatIO within Google Forms to help students showcase their working out and understanding of the day’s learning.

Try prediction, dictation or handwriting recognition to create maths in the equation editor and insert into a Google Doc. 

Powered by Desmos, the graphing calculator makes maths visual. Simply enter any expression or data set into EquatIO and see it plotted instantly.

Turn your EquatIO mathspaces into classroom assignments. Share problems with students, keep track of responses, and create an ongoing, valuable feedback loop between teacher and student.

Sometimes it is hard to think how to incorporate technology into good old pen and paper lessons. But we have a few more ideas in this EquatIO database.

If you find these activity examples useful, check out our dedicated Back to School resource page for other handy hints and tips to help you get the most out of EquatIO. 

We’re also running live webinar, for each of our Back to School blog series themes. If you would like to learn more about how our software can help improve accessible maths, sign up to Richard & Anna’s ‘Accessible Maths using Read&Write and EquatIO’ webinar taking place on Tuesday 24th September 2019 from 3:45pm- 4:30pm. 

Lastly, if you would like to share how you use EquatIO in your classroom, feel free to add your ideas to the comments section below. 

In this blog, we’ve pulled together some EquatIO ideas to improve technology use within the maths classroom.

EquatIO Activities for Back to School

Back to School: Are you improving Maths and STEM with EquatIO?

In this third blog of our Back to School series, we’ve pulled together some EquatIO features that can help improve digital maths activities in the classroom. 

In this blog, we speak to Texthelp’s Disability Confident Champion, Edyta Twardowska, about why we joined the scheme and what we’ve done so far…

Why did Texthelp decide to get involved in the Disability Confident scheme?

It’s extremely important that an organisation like Texthelp takes part in a scheme like this. Disabilities - whether mental or physical - are very common, so it’s important that we put our hands up and say, “We welcome every potential employee here. Don’t let having a disability put you off from applying to work at Texthelp.” Since we help millions of people with disabilities through our software every day, it’s definitely part of our DNA to be involved in a scheme like this and to help others in our community recognise its importance.

What have been the most impactful changes or initiatives you've implemented as part of your Disability Confident journey?

Some time ago, I introduced the idea of working with a local mental health organisation, Action Mental Health (AMH) New Horizons, here in Antrim. The project is motivated by a common goal of making a positive difference in the lives of others and involves a 12-month (and hopefully beyond) job shadowing programme to help AMH New Horizons clients take that first step back to employment.

We invite one client per month to join the Texthelp team in the Antrim office to shadow one of our admin roles for a day. We’re proud to actively promote a happy and healthy working environment with various workplace initiatives, so it’s the ideal space for individuals to experience the world of work again.

Through this joint initiative, we hope that the people who come to job shadow here gain some new skills, improve their career opportunities and leave with increased confidence and self-esteem.

Our support of the local organisation doesn’t stop there. We’re working with the team at New Horizons to add our literacy software, Read&Write, to the computers in their offices for both staff and clients to make use of. Plus, we’ve added our digital accessibility tool, ReachDeck, to their website, ensuring all of their visitors can access the online content and information provided there.

Another change that’s been actively implemented at Texthelp is that we now recruit as a disability-friendly organisation, welcoming applications from every member of the community. We’ve also taken steps to ensure we can accommodate for anyone with a physical or mental disability who comes into the office for an in-person interview.

How will operating as a Disability Confident Employer help Texthelp as a business?

Being a Disability Confident Employer is definitely opening up opportunities for us to recruit from a wider talent pool. In the past, we’ve found that potential employees may have been put off from applying to work here because they thought they might not make it through the recruitment process. But, we hope that by working with the Department of Work and Pensions on this scheme, we’re much more aware and inclusive of job applicants with disabilities.

In addition to these benefits, we also have corporate social responsibilities, like the work we are doing with AMH New Horizons. We hope that this work helps encourage other local organisations to realise their potential to make a difference in the community as well.

What does being a Disability Confident Employer mean for the Texthelp team?

Being Disability Confident helps us to support our existing employees with their needs. Someone who may have been reluctant to previously disclose a disability, now hopefully feels they can reach out for the extra support that they need without being singled out or discriminated against.

Our involvement in the scheme has also opened up new channels of communication, especially around the topic of disabilities and mental health illnesses such as depression and anxiety. What we’re trying to do here is to say, “It’s good to talk, and we want to be able to support you no matter what’s going on.”

Since we were awarded our Disability Confident Employer status, I’ve had my eyes on the next level: Disability Confident Leader. With all the work that we’re doing, I’m confident that we’ll get there soon.

On a personal level, I’m looking to continue with the AMH New Horizons project, and I’ve been thinking about the possibilities of expanding the job shadow program into other departments here at Texthelp. Some of the clients who’ve taken part already have shown a keen interest in other areas of the business, like our software development team, technical support and marketing.

If you would like to explore more, find out how you could become a Disability Confident Organisation, or hear from other Disability Confident organisations as part of our Disability Inclusion series.

Our vision here at Texthelp is of a world where difference, disability or language are no longer barriers. Couple that with our mission of wanting to help unlock everyone’s full potential through innovative technology, and it only makes sense that we get involved in the Department of Work and Pensions’ Disability Confident scheme. Whilst we’ve been committed to the scheme for some time, we’re now a proud Disability Confident Employer with our sights set on becoming a Disability Confident Leader in the near future. So, here’s a little sneak peek into our journey…

Blog

Back to School: Are you improving independent study and revision with our technology?

Back to School: Here’s how Read&Write can be used in exams

Back to School: Are you improving student writing with Read&Write?

What is the recipe for success in schools?

Back to School: Are you improving Maths and STEM with EquatIO?

Texthelp's Own Journey to Becoming a Disability Confident Employer

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