Did you ever get an assignment back from a high school teacher with red ink all over it? Kind of sucks, right?

NoRedInk, a website created by high school English teacher Jeff Scheur, seeks to improve students’ grammar by providing specific, positive, and thoughtful feedback instead of giving students a page of red marks. NoRedInk provides personalized quizzes for students based on their specific needs. The website does not just list endless multiple choice questions, but rather, students edit sentences designed for their specific reading level.

A Teacher’s Personal Struggle Becomes A Spark of Innovation

In his eight years as a high school English teacher, Jeff Scheur has marked up over 15,000 papers. Scheur estimates that every time he collects a round of essays from his 150 students, it takes him roughly 40 hours to read, grade, and provide feedback for all of his students’ essays.

As technology permeates and augments every area of life, Scheur is one of many who are questioning traditional teaching methods and thinking about innovative ways to make teaching more effective. Lack of personalized feedback for students led Scheur to release the first version of NoRedInk.

The NoRedInk site makes strides towards better feedback and personalized practice sets for students’ unique needs while making the experience entertaining and relevant for all. Scheur noticed, for instance, that students in his classroom pay more attention when sample sentences include popular characters (Mr. T was an early favorite). In the app, students can choose interests such as NBA or superheroes that are then included in their practice problems. By allowing students to choose their own topics, Scheur designed NoRedInk to keep students’ attention on learning.

Technology In The Classroom

NoRedInk joins a long line of apps and tech finding its way into the classroom. Here at Reset, we love to see innovation in all fields, but we especially love creative uses for tech tools building education 2.0.

With new ideas like crowdsourcing educational resources via the Curriki network, teaching kids how to code with Scratch Jr., and bridging the digital divide, techies all over the world are working hard to push education into the 21st century.

NoRedInk is in beta form, but there are plans to expand in the coming months. You can learn more at NoRedInk.com. If you’d like to learn how you can help their efforts, email [email protected].