Computerised marking. For essays?
Wednesday, 2 March 2011
http://www.straitstimes.com/PrimeNews/Story/STIStory_634701.htmlI refer to the above article about 3,000 students in more than 20 Singapore schools using a computer software, costing around $60 to mark their english essays. The objective of such a software is by using hundreds of pre-fed essays on various topics as gauge, the computer will mark the essay and also spot grammatical mistakes. This ensures that a teacher is not always involved, and allows students to have feedback within seconds while he essay is still fresh in their minds. Also, who could spot for grammatical mistakes better than a computer. Other than that, with every teacher, they have a unique way of marking, and such computerisation is a standardisation of rubrics.
It might make writing uniform and that's the worst thing
However, personally, i feel that writing essays would lose its meaning with computerised marking. To say that a computer could totally absorb and empathise with the narrator is nearly impossible. And with the pre-fed essays in mind, this makes writing very limited. Does this mean, if you start your essay very uniquely, different from any pre-fed essays, its a bad essay? Also, Crescent Secondary 4 student Sabrina Mohamed Nezam Meah, 16, said she tried submitting the same essay for two different topics 'A significant experience' and 'A learning experience' and managed to get a good score for both. This showed that it is assessing me mostly on my language and not much on my ideas. I prefer having my teacher to mark my essays as she will grade me on all areas,' she added. Also, it shows that the computer failed to recognise the slight difference in topics.
While i have to admit it is a toot that could help teachers in marking, providing a second opinion, it most definitely cannot replace human-marking. Writing should be creative, and not limited. We should not be told what to write, in order to score good grades. Writing should be fun.