Imagine a virtual writing workspace that provides learners, parents, teachers, and the public with all they need to know about student progress without having end-of-semester tests. Does that seem like science fiction?

With the support of the US Department of Education Institute of Education Sciences, our team of media experts and engineers at CG Software–partnered with a team of interdisciplinary researchers at the University of Illinois led by Dr Bill Cope of the College of Education–is thinking ambitiously about such a possibility, while working modestly and incrementally to build a web-based learning environment that does just this.

The Scholar application suite is designed to help students to

become socialized as active participants in knowledge communities
engage in project-based, peer-to-peer learning
think about how their are constructing, and making choices about communicating, meaning
explore multi-modal learning and authoring
improve their work through receiving ongoing formative assessment