Murray City School District students in grades 3 through 12 are transitioning to a new writing tool called Scrible. This shift comes after the Utah State Board of Education retired Utah Compose, a platform previously used for automated essay scoring.
Scrible serves as an interactive workspace for students, teachers, and school librarians to collaborate. Unlike the previous program, which functioned primarily as an automated grading assistant, Scrible allows users to annotate web articles and PDFs in real time, build digital libraries for research, and automatically generate bibliographies to prevent accidental plagiarism.
The district aims to move beyond instant automated scoring to focus on deeper research and active writing. This transition follows research from the National Writing Project suggesting that guided, collaborative research can lead to a 30% greater improvement in writing performance compared to relying solely on automated feedback. Additionally, Pew Research Center data indicates that 77% of middle and high school teachers believe digital technologies positively impact research skills when students are taught to evaluate online sources.
Scrible is provided statewide through the Utah Education Network and is free for all Utah K-12 students. Students can access the platform using their district single sign-on via Google or Microsoft accounts from any internet-connected computer or tablet.
Parents and students can find platform tools and video guides at Scrible EDU or access state library resources through Utah's Online Library.
