Northampton College Case Study

About Northampton College

Northampton College has approximately 13,000 learners and over 600 full time members of staff. It offers a broad range of full-time and part-time Learning and Skills Council funded courses. In addition, it provides Higher Education courses funded through The University of Northampton.

Using WriteOnline at Northampton College

Northampton College have been trialling WriteOnline since mid February and have been using it with students working with the Additional Support Team. The team support individual students who have specific learning difficulties, are working on their basic skills or who are English language learners. Although ideal for these users, the college has a policy of inclusion and can see the benefits of WriteOnline for all students. With a plan to implement WriteOnline across the whole college for ALL students from September, WriteOnline will be delivered through the college's Moodle-based learning platform. This will enable a single login and access for all students and staff wherever they are.

Linda Hawkins

Support tutor working with dyslexic students

“I was very impressed by WriteOnline when we first saw it in February. We have been trialling WriteOnline in the college for the last few months and I have been able to introduce it to some of the students I support.  I presented it to one of my students who has poor writing skills but quickly picks up anything on the computer. This has been incredibly useful for her as it has allowed her writing skills to match her verbal skills. She is using it for most of her assignment work now and it has made a significant difference to the quality of her writing . I even sent an email to her tutor to say that this was the reason for the sudden improvement in her work and that she is not cheating!

I am excited at the prospect of introducing WriteOnline to all my students. The speech facility is better than the one we are currently using and the predictor box is easy to use and extremely helpful - particularly for students who have significant difficulties with writing and spelling.

I can see that this is a tool some students will want to have available to them whenever and with whatever they are writing. The Wordbars are so easy to create and instantly become useful resources for a number of students. I look forward to having a 'library' of these that we can all access. I particularly like the way you can individualise the Wordbars according to the student's needs and the text bubbles are very handy. This is a great piece of software, fantastic for the students I am working with, but I can see it will be a great tool for all our students at the college.”

Helen Janska

Dyslexia coordinator

“I really like WriteOnline because it is so simple to use. It means that our students are given the confidence to work independently in all subject areas.

I have been using WriteOnline with one particular student on a Beauty Therapy course. The software has allowed me to create a Wordbar that includes the key vocabulary for the module she is working on. This has enabled her to really think about the content of her work, rather than just on the spelling of this complex vocabulary. This, coupled with the prediction in WriteOnline, has meant that she is much more accurate, fluent and independent in her work.

Having an online word processor has lots of benefits - students can use the software in college, then at home in the evening, and we can create Wordbars for them to use wherever they are. When WriteOnline is available to all our students via our Moodle learning platform, they can be provided with the support they need, when they need it. More importantly they are using the same software as their peers, making it a really inclusive product which fits in perfectly with our aims in the Additional Needs Team.”

Sara Abdallah

Sara is a student at Northampton College with a specific learning difficulty.

“I have found using WriteOnline really great and very easy to use.  The prediction panel has allowed me to be much more focused and on tasks it has been great to have access to all the key words I need in the Wordbar, also to hear over the words that I've written. It has also made me much quicker in writing my assignments. This has meant that the work I've done has been much improved. I also found this program great when copying words from the web and putting it in the word predictor, and using it in my assignments. I would recommend this to other students.”

Natalie Larder

Natalie is an A level student at the college and has been using WriteOnline at college and at home.

“I was introduced to WriteOnline a few weeks ago and now I am using it at college and at home. I don't have Word at home, so it has been great to be able to use the word processor in WriteOnline at home. I have also been saving my work in the online folders which has meant I can start some work at college and then continue, or finish it at home. I have used it with a Wordbar to write my Macbeth coursework as well as to write up my study notes. I've been really impressed by how easy it is to use WriteOnline – it has really made me much more independent.”