Culford is a co-ed independent school for students from 3 to 18 years old. My work is mainly based at the prep school, where we have a group of children who require additional support for specific learning difficulties (dyslexia and/or a cognitive attention deficit). Most of these children have an Educational Psychologist’s assessment, with many of the reports recommending that they use a laptop. However, once these were in place we found that although they benefited from some things like access to a spell checker, their overall struggles with writing weren’t really changing, and they weren’t progressing as much as we’d hoped.
I had used Crick Software’s Clicker product in a past school to support younger learners, and really liked it. When I had an email from Crick about DocsPlus, I was intrigued - and I really wanted one of the consultants to come in and show us what the program could do for our older students.
I really liked the look of it during the demonstration and decided to run a month’s trial with a small group of children. I was so impressed with the impact DocsPlus had in that short time that we bought a 5 Computers License shortly afterwards.
My favorite feature of DocsPlus is WorkSpace, the mind mapping area. It really helps students to plot out and organize their ideas for an essay: we can color-code each part so that they can very quickly see how to structure each paragraph, and it encourages them to actually develop each of those ideas too.
When I was made head of the Learning Development department, I delivered presentations on DocsPlus to the whole school, and arranged for a consultant to come into parent’s evening and present it to the parents of the children I work with. So many of them were really wowed by it and have now purchased it for their children to bring in on their own devices. We now have a growing number of students in 2nd and 3rd grade accessing DocsPlus via the iPad, and then from 4th grade onwards, moving on to the laptop version.
My favorite feature of DocsPlus is WorkSpace, the mind mapping area. It really helps students to plot out and organize their ideas for an essay: we can color-code each part so that they can very quickly see how to structure each paragraph, and it encourages them to actually develop each of those ideas too. Previously the children would just start writing without much of a plan, change their minds, and quickly go off track - now they’re spreading their ideas evenly and logically across their essays in succinct paragraphs, going into more detail, and linking different elements together much more effectively. It’s a fantastic tool for revision activities too. I have tried so many different mind mapping tools over the years and nothing is as quick, simple, and intuitive as DocsPlus. Many of our more visual learners respond well to images - they act as visual hooks. So to be able to just quickly search and drop a relevant picture into their mind map makes it a multisensory activity that our dyslexic users in particular really benefit from.
I also really love the word banks. Helping children to expand their vocabulary can be really difficult, and these make a real difference. Sometimes I create my own word banks – I’ll go to the history or science teacher to see what topic they’re covering in the next lesson, and will quickly create a word bank for the students to take into class. I really like the bank of ready-made ones too though, they cover a huge variety of curriculum areas and I will always recommend that when a teacher starts a new topic, they search there first to see what is already available.
There’s so much technical vocabulary in subjects like science and history. A lot of my students would have no chance of spelling these themselves and would become very frustrated and preoccupied with that element of the task. Being able to select those relevant words and instantly send them into their documents really helps to alleviate that frustration and maintain their focus on what they’re trying to write. There is also an added bonus that just seeing certain subject words in the bank actually reminds the children to incorporate them more frequently.
There have been so many positive outcomes from embedding DocsPlus in our learning development strategies. The children’s writing output has increased, the work they are producing is more detailed and at a higher level than previously, and incorporates more sophisticated and relevant vocabulary.
In addition to my work with our prep school students, I also teach a few of the older children in the senior school. One of my 8th graders still uses DocsPlus now that he has moved up, and absolutely loves it. His main writing issue is that he rushes, which means his typing error rate is quite high. He loves that DocsPlus reads his work back to him. A lot of these children can’t spot errors when they try and read it back themselves, but with the audio support they can spot them very quickly and are prompted to actively review and revise their writing – it really speeds up their editing process.
There have been so many positive outcomes from embedding DocsPlus in our learning development strategies. The children’s writing output has increased, the work they are producing is more detailed and at a higher level than previously, and incorporates more sophisticated and relevant vocabulary. This has been particularly evident in descriptive writing tasks where students can access a variety of adjective banks that help them take their writing to the next level.
DocsPlus has also had a significant impact on these students’ confidence and self-belief. Here’s some of the feedback I’ve had from them so far:
“I like it because my hand really hurts if I have to write a lot and it presents my work beautifully (my handwriting is really messy). Also, I write much more as the predictive text works really well and that speeds me up.”
- 3rd grade student
“I like DocsPlus because it makes writing less stressful in class and during homework sessions. I use the read back mode to help me spot where I need to add a word or punctuation and the spell checker to improve my spellings. By using DocsPlus I find I get more detail into my written work. It helps me complete tasks in class faster and more successfully.”
- 6th grade student
“I love it and use it all the time. For me the word banks are really helpful. I make my own sometimes to get me started with my sentences. Also, the WorkSpace helps me plan my ideas quickly and it is a great tool for revision as I use color and pictures from the internet.”
- 6th grade student
“I’m really bad at spelling and the predictive text is amazing and it speeds up my writing. Before I would have tons of spelling mistakes in my work but now I feel confident to hand in my work.”
- 7th grade student
DocsPlus also includes an Exam Mode for students who require readers, scribes, or word processing support. We have been using it for informal exams at the prep school for the last two years, and it’s been working really well. As more and more of my DocsPlus users move up to the senior school, (I have several moving up next year), I’m hopeful that in the future the senior school can investigate using it in their formal exams too.
DocsPlus gives our struggling writers all the tools they need to confidently tackle writing tasks and create work that they feel proud to hand in. I’m so pleased with the progress it’s helping our learners to make across the curriculum.
Looking ahead, I anticipate that the number of students using DocsPlus across the school will just grow and grow. From September 2019, we will be starting BYOD for every 6th and 7th grade student, where previously it was just available for those who had specific learning needs. Now that it will be every child using a laptop, not just those with special needs, I’m planning to roll DocsPlus out even further, as I strongly believe that they could all benefit from the valuable support it offers in the areas of planning, scaffolding, and proofing writing tasks.
I’ll also be running a clinic for any children who would like to come and try it out, during which we can troubleshoot any difficulties they might have with writing and find out how DocsPlus could help. For example, there was one child who was struggling to finish any piece of work. We did some tests and found that his typing speed was twice as fast as his handwriting. We realized we could fix this issue almost instantly by providing a laptop with DocsPlus and making this his usual way of writing – he’s now doing really well!
DocsPlus gives our struggling writers all the tools they need to confidently tackle writing tasks and create work that they feel proud to hand in. I’m so pleased with the progress it’s helping our learners to make across the curriculum.
Cathkin High School was given the opportunity to trial DocsPlus. The trial was set up by Crick Software in collaboration with the Schools Managed Service provider, RM Education, and was supported by South Lanarkshire Council.
Cathkin High School is a mainstream school in South Lanarkshire Council, in Scotland, with around 1,100 students. I am the Special Education Lead Teacher and support students with a wide range of support needs, for example students with dyslexia, ADHD, autism, etc. I also work to support staff in ensuring students’ special educaitonal needs are met within the classroom.
We have found DocsPlus to be a more multifaceted technology resource than we have been using so far. DocsPlus can be used by students with varying needs and abilities to progress and work more independently. So, for example, the spellchecker picks up on the phonics problem the students have:
“The spellchecker really helped. It helped me believe in myself, and gave me confidence with my writing.”
We used DocsPlus with a freshman English class as part of a transition exercise we do where the students write Christmas letters to the middle school students about things to look out for, things to look forward to, and hints and tips before they move up to high school. Verbally, the students can easily give you lots of ideas and examples but committing these ideas to paper is much harder for them as they struggle with starting extended writing tasks and structuring them.
The spellchecker really helped. It helped me believe in myself, and gave me confidence with my writing.
For some students this process of moving from a blank piece of paper to a coherent piece of writing is a real struggle. So, DocsPlus does something other word processors can’t: it gives them that scaffolding, that frame so they have a starting point with their thinking. DocsPlus is great as it has many ready-made templates or Wordbars which staff can use or edit.
We created banks of useful vocabulary and writing frames, which are called "Wordbars" in DocsPlus, to help the students with their work. We found they were a great way to provide accessible, topic-specific phrases and sentences for the students to use. This hugely improved the speed and accuracy of their writing! With the letter task I mentioned earlier, the Wordbar tabs were organized to guide the students through the entire letter writing process:
“The different sections of the Wordbar were really helpful; it helped you write the letter in order and gave ideas about what to write next.”
DocsPlus made it so much easier for them to structure and order things – it gave them confidence in their writing.
I think one of the loveliest comments we got was to do with the word predictor. One of the children said:
“When you started to write a word at the bottom, the word appeared, and you just clicked on it to add it. If you didn’t know how to spell a word, if you put in the first couple of letters, it would just come up. It let me use bigger words I wouldn’t be able to spell.”
DocsPlus was helping to improve the quality of their writing too and gave them the confidence to use the sophisticated vocabulary they knew in their heads but couldn’t get down on paper before. It was great to see!
Children in South Lanarkshire already have access to Clicker at the elementary school level, so they are used to having a writing support tool in place. It would make a lot of sense for them to transition to an age-appropriate tool like this when they move into high school.
When you started to write a word at the bottom, the word appeared, and you just clicked on it to add it. If you didn’t know how to spell a word, if you put in the first couple of letters, it would just come up. It let me use bigger words I wouldn’t be able to spell.
There’s no doubt that DocsPlus had a massive impact on the students during our trial. It improved their self-esteem, confidence, and motivation with writing tasks. Certainly in the English department we found that their level of writing improved significantly. The letters the students wrote were comfortably receiving higher grades – so there was definitely a tangible improvement in the quality of their written work.
Ultimately, what we’re trying to do is get students working and achieving independently. We want them to be actively doing things for themselves; increasing resilience and independence, and I think DocsPlus really helps with that. I think this would be a fantastic tool for all high schools to have access to.
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I’m the Head of Inclusion at Aldar Academies Al Bateen Academy – a leading secondary English Curriculum and International Baccalaureate Diploma School in Abu Dhabi. I previously worked in an elementary school where we used Clicker, and I was a massive fan! I thought it was a fantastic support tool for so many of our students because, regardless of whether or not they had special educational needs, English is a challenging area – especially in terms of writing. I had a group of 1st grade students that would write just one sentence in an hour, and with Clicker they were producing whole paragraphs – it was so fantastic!
Last September, I moved over to working at the secondary level at Al Bateen Academy and was looking for a more ‘grown up’ version of Clicker for my students. I met with Phil at Crick Software and the minute he started talking about DocsPlus I knew we needed it. The big issue we have is exam access arrangements. When I started here it was really evident that our students in grades 10 and 12 were going to need a lot of input – I soon realized how many students required readers and/or scribes, and I was thinking ‘there’s no way we’re going to be able to find the human resources to do this!’ I went on a DocsPlus training session and I was blown away when Phil demonstrated Exam Mode – that was a real wow moment.
I used to be a reader for students doing exams and I found that often students would be too embarrassed to ask you to repeat something, because they felt too self-conscious. That whole element has been eradicated with DocsPlus, and I just love it! With the number of students we have requiring access arrangements, and the number of exams that they’ve done, I estimate that we would’ve had to pay about AED 29000 ($8,000) this year alone to cover the cost of readers and scribes! So not only is DocsPlus a massive financial savings, it’s a huge savings on human resources. But more than that, it gives those students the independence to know they’re fully in control - there’s no one listening; they’re not embarrassed to keep listening back. I am massively sold on it!
As a dyslexia specialist teacher, I can also really see the benefit of using DocsPlus for learners with dyslexia. Very often, students will be trying to work out how to spell a word and because it’s just too difficult, they will use a different, easier word instead. So, it’s brilliant that with tools like the Predictor, they’re able to show me what they know and be independent. It gives them that extra little bit of scaffolding and confidence to let them flourish.
At the moment, I’m looking to train one staff member in each department to be a ‘DocsPlus expert’ and share their knowledge with the rest of the team. Many of our skilled teachers across a range of curriculum areas are embracing this technology, recognizing the benefits for students in building confidence and independence, and in raising attainment and engagement.
A large percentage of our learners are not native English language speakers and therefore they need a frame or scaffold to help organize their written work. It’s so easy to create a DocsPlus Wordbar (a key word bank) or enable students to practice their speech with the Voice Note tool, which allows students to write far more in less time and of far better quality. There’s so much scope to support ELL students.
Recently I was teaching an 8th grade ELL class, and the second they sat down with a Wordbar they could just start writing. It was brilliant for me, and so good for their own self-esteem – being able to produce a whole sheet of paper, when they would’ve previously struggled to write even a few sentences without DocsPlus! They were all, obviously, proud of themselves.
DocsPlus just checks off all the boxes! Having worked in special education for so long, I know the impact this can have on students. To be struggling so much, spending every lesson having to really stop and think, ‘how am I going to word this?’ or ‘how can I show what I know?’; it’s really tiring and demoralizing for them. So, I think it’s great that they’ve got this new sense of confidence and are so happy using DocsPlus.
Regardless of all the human resources and money it has saved us, the most important benefit has been the hugely positive impact on our students and their writing.
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