1. 1
S C I E N C E ◼ P A S S I O N ◼ T E C H N O L O G Y
u www.tugraz.at
Learning Analytics and Spelling
Acquisition in German –
the Path to Individualization in Learning
Markus Ebner, Konstanze Edtstadler and Martin Ebner

2. 22
Outline
• Introduction to IDeRBlog
• Background
• Goals of the project
• Individualization in Learning
• Extension of the Intelligent Dictionary
• A new Training Format
• Example: incorrect spelled words
• Walkthrough
• Outlook

3. 33
IDeRBlog & IDeRBlog ii
• Erasmus+ Project
• Partners in
• Belgium
• Germany
• Austria
• Combine development of writing skills and
the acquisition of orthographic competences
• Primarily for children, age 8 to 12

4. 44
Ideas and main points
• User friendly web-based platform
• Writing a text and get automatic feedback for
autonomous correction
• German orthography is known to be difficult to master.
• Help pupils who struggle with the acquisition of
German orthography
• Help them improve writing and spelling
• Provide qualitative analysis of orthographic
problems for teachers
• Provide exercises for training

5. 55
Goals of IDeRBlog ii
• further implementation in schools in order that more
students can benefit from the platform
• further individualization of the training material to
foster the orthographic competence
• extension of the number of words, which give a
specific feedback for correcting the mistakes

6. 66
Individualization –
Extension of the Intelligent Dictionary
Two strategies:
• (1) Analysing the texts between October 2016 and
October 2019
• Select most frequent correct and incorrect spelled
words
• Implementation into the intelligent dictionary by
deriving all their word forms and the mistakes
corresponding to the categories

7. 77
Individualization –
Extension of the Intelligent Dictionary
• (2) teachers
suggest words
that should be
implemented

8. 88
Individualization –
A new Training Format
Two approaches:
1. focus on problematic orthographic areas based
on the qualitative analysis of mistakes
2. train the specific words that are spelled
incorrectly

9. 99
Example: incorrect spelled words
• to train incorrectly spelled words, a specific didactic
approach is necessary
• it is not enough to just read the words or write them
several times.
• the words should be trained by applying the strategy
of conscious copying
• taking into account specific problematic positions in
a word
• Advantage of digital format: words that need to be
trained are chosen automatically by the system

10. 1010
Example: walkthrough, step 1/3
First step: confrontation with the correctly spelled word
and think about possible problematic positions in the
word. Word „ähnlich“ – similar

11. 1111
Example: walkthrough, step 2/3
Second step: write the word by heart without seeing
the correctly spelled word

12. 1212
Example: walkthrough, step 3/3
Third step: feedback on the spelling attempt in
contrast to the correct spelling

13. 1313
Possible modifications
• Number of presented words
• Up to five words can be presented at the same
time in the first step.
• Marking of problematic positions
• Can be deactivated
• Time limit
• Optionally definable
• Presentation of misspelled words
• Only show the correctly spelled word

14. 1414
Outlook
• Currently we work on developing additional
training formats and on extending the intelligent
dictionary
• we are working on the extension of the intelligent
dictionary by analyzing the texts written so far
• Interesting topic: Corona crisis and IDeRBlog

15. 1515
Educational Technology
• Slides available at:
• http://elearningblog.tugraz.at
• For further information about the project and
partners please visit:
• http://iderblog.eu
• http://elearning.tugraz.at
• https://www.tugraz.at/en/
oe/lehr-und-lerntechnologien/home/

16. 1616
Acknowledgements
The IDeRBlog-project and the IDeRBlog-ii project are funded by the European
Commission in the framework of Erasmus+ (IDeRBlog: VG-SPS-SL-14-001616-
3, 2014-2017; IDeRBlog-ii: VG-IN-SL-18-36-047317, 2018-2021).
Project-team of IDeRBlog ii:
Germany: LPM Saarland (M. Gros = coordinator, N. Steinhauer); Gebundene
Ganztagsschule Dellengarten (S. Pfeifer, J. Gregori);
Austria: PH Steiermark (K. Edtstadler, E. Herunter); TU Graz (M. Ebner, M.
Ebner);
Belgium: Gemeindeschule Raeren (A. Huppertz, V. Kistemann);