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Draft:Builder 6 UK Version is now available.

Builds planning, organising and process-writing strategies

Do your struggling learners spend enough time planning and organising their ideas before they write them down? RESEARCH shows that this is true for many students: they just do not spend the time to process their thoughts into a cohesive draft form.

Research shows “… students produced longer and more sophisticated essays that received higher scores when they constructed concept maps during the pre-writing stage. Students’ writing attitudes were most positive when concept mapping was completed on-computer.” Effects of hand-drawn and computer generated concept mapping on the expository writing of middle school students with learning disabilities. Learning Disabilities Research and Practice, 17(2), p124-139.

“We knew we were successful because the students wanted to come to the writing lab. Their self-confidence increased, and they were excited about writing!” – Santina M Brown, AT Resource Teacher

Using Draft:Builder SOLO, a writing software technology that breaks down the writing process, your students will enjoy the pre-writing process and ultimately write effective essays and papers as they:

• build better visual maps to prepare their plans and goals
  
• construct visual outlines to organise their ideas
  
• take better notes to emphasise and process important facts

Draft:Builder SOLO will enable your students to write a paper or report that they can be proud of! Draft:Builder SOLO is an effective technology tool for students with IEPs, at-risk students, poor writers, students with dyslexia, exceptional-needs students and students who need more practice to build effective writing concepts.

Support Any Writing Instruction with Effective Writing Habits

Effective writing habits improve students’ overall literacy skills and their understanding of the key writing elements that lead to success for adolescent students. Here’s how Draft:Builder works in three easy steps:

1. Organising Ideas – Students add concepts and ideas to the outline on the left panel and a visual map is automatically created on the right panel. Students can easily change the order and outline level with drag-and-drop techniques or with the one-click arrow buttons.
2. Expanding Ideas – Students add short notes that include details and assign them to an outline point. They may reorganise at any time by dragging them to different locations in the outline.
3. Writing the First Draft – Students drag notes from the outline and drop them in the draft area. This creates the first draft. Then, students can type more sentences or add punctuation and capitalisation.

Click here to see an image of the above Draft:Builder SOLO writing process.

Features

• Auditory Feedback – Natural sounding speech feedback helps students self-evaluate word choice and sentence fluency as they write their outline and first draft.
• Bibliographer and Bibliographer Wizard
  The Bibliographer helps students document sources in either APA or MLA format. A bibliographer wizard helps structure the entries so students can focus on writing one piece of information at a time.
• Locked Text
  Teachers may add locked text to a Draft:Builder assignment to give directions to students as they form their first draft. Locked text can be read aloud for extra help in understanding teacher comments, and can be hidden for reading and/or printing a finished assignment.
• Franklin Spell Checker and Dictionary
  The Franklin Spell Checker is the most accurate spell checker for 3rd-12th grade students and it’s built into Draft:Builder. It consistently offers more accurate suggestions than spell checkers typical of word processors developed for office use. The Franklin Dictionary displays and speaks the definition of almost any word. Unlike other dictionaries, the Franklin Dictionary definitions are written for students in a 3rd-12th grade setting.
• Outline View
  Outline, tree and concept map views provide three ways students can choose to view their information outline.

Draft:Builder SOLO Benefits

• Improve Writing Outcomes
  
  • Guide the writing process in three manageable steps that build student confidence
    
  • Develop deliberate, systematic and strategic writing habits for improving writing quality
    
  • Extend and reinforce effective classroom instruction through practice
  
  
• Enhance Idea Generation and Organisation
  
  • Multiple modes of information presentation match preferred student idea generation process
    
  • Proven structure helps transition ideas from brainstorming into a coherent and thoughtful draft
  
  
• Support any Writing Genre and any Subject
  
  • Draft:Builder SOLO includes a number of ready-to-go templates that structure student planning, organising and writing across all genres
    
  • Modify existing templates such as Compare-and-contrast, 3-paragraph essay and Story development, or create your own to match your curriculum subject

How to Implement Into Your Classroom

Draft:Builder SOLO reinforces your writing instruction. Help students practise effective habits to successfully write across all genres and subjects.

• Choose any classroom writing assignment (book report, essay, research project)
  
• Teach the writing process using Draft:Builder SOLO’s proven effective structure
  
• Students independently self-select Draft:Builder SOLO Outline Templates based on the level of support they need for on-computer or text-based writing projects

In addition to Draft:Builder SOLO, you can help give your students more support by employing other components of SOLO:

• Read:OutLoud SOLO
  When used with Read:OutLoud SOLO Edition, Draft:Builder SOLO gets the outline and all of the notes students have generated from the eText they have read in Read:OutLoud.
• Co:Writer SOLO
  When used with Co:Writer SOLO Edition, students receive just-in-time support with content-area and topic-specific words by applying Topic and Genre Dictionaries. Co:Writer’s New Topic Dictionary Word Wall displays a list of words to tap prior knowledge about the writing topic.
• Write:OutLoud SOLO
  When used with Write:OutLoud SOLO Edition, Draft:Builder SOLO’s content exports directly into Write:OutLoud SOLO, reflecting all of the outlining, note-taking and drafting students have completed with Draft:Builder SOLO. Students are seamlessly transitioned into the next steps of the writing process: revision, editing and publishing.

Need to scan text into Draft:Builder SOLO using a portable pen? See the new Notetaker portable scanning pen from Don Johnston Inc.

“I introduced a student with autism to Draft:Builder SOLO this year. After a few short introductory sessions with this program, this student used the software on a consistent basis and used the tool while taking the state test. He was so excited to use this tool during the state test that he wrote all day long and his mother actually had to come and pick him up after school hours when he finished writing.” Karen, Assistive Technology Specialist, Fairfax, VA, USA

View/Download

• Draft:Builder SOLO Edition Train-in-30 Tutorial (pdf 320 KB)
  
• Draft:Builder Quick Reference Card (pdf 220 KB)
  
• Draft:Builder SOLO Edition – Getting Started (pdf 1.4 MB)
  
• Draft:Builder SOLO Templates
  
• Draft:Builder SOLO Edition Research Papers and Case Studies

Minimum System Requirements

• Windows
  • Operating System: 2000, XP, Vista (NOT 64 bit Vista compatible)
  • System RAM: 512 MB RAM
  • Hard Disk Space: 200 MB
  • Minimum Processor: Pentium III
  • Sound Card: Sound Blaster or Windows compatible
  • CD-ROM: 4x minimum
• Macintosh
  • Operating System: OS 10.2 – 10.4
  • System RAM: 512 MB RAM
  • Hard Disk Space: 200 MB
  • Minimum Processor: G3
  • CD-ROM: 4x minimum

Online Training

• SOLO Training Resources (2006) by Special Education Technology Center in British Columbia (SET BC)

Prices

	Code	Media	Platform	$AUD Price	$AUD GST
	Draft:Builder SOLO UK Version - Single Computer Licence	Shelf Stock Clearance - Existing stock now available at this reduced price while stocks last!
	bDJR85	CD-ROM	Mac OS X, Win 2000, Win XP, Win Vista	$149.99	$0.00