Cramster© Web Writing Tool

Cramster©

Web Writing Tool

 

Introduction

Cramster is an innovative web site that provides online help to users worldwide. Originally created to students, however  Cramster is also used by “non-students”, people who want to learn English and improve their writing skills. Besides, Cramster makes available help and learning strategies whether in math, science, engineering, humanities, business, or English writing assistance. Concerning to writing abilities learners can submit different types of texts like essays, thesis statements, among others; which are then proof-read by professionals aiming to improve users writing abilities. This Internet study community has been used by students around the world; principally from North America, these students look for assistance and support in different subjects, regularly math, science and engineering.

History

This original web tool was created by Aaron Hawkey, Robert Angarita & Kave Golabi in 2002 when they were still students of the University of California, in Pasadena, CA. Nevertheless, this website wasn`t launched until 2003 when Cramster started to make publicity. After a few years, the website got recognition when the Q&A model was included (Questions and Answers board); this model allowed interaction between members and users. Originally, Cramster covered just 3 subjects: math, science and engineering; although, the recent additions of English writing assistance and humanities to their subjects have gained the expansion of their active users around the world; due to this, Cramster expects to have reached a total income of $25 million by 2012, likewise, this website look ahead to get over the 100.000 active users that it had in 2008; Cramster expects to get about 500.000 active users by 2012.

Features

This website offers communities of subject experts ready to answer any questions users have; for example, submitted texts by users are proof-read by native speakers in order to get real corrections and feedback that help students in their effort to improve their writing composition skills. With Cramster, users can have about 350 interactive textbook guides that provide step-by-step solutions and helpful tips depending on the subject that users are developing. Furthermore, Cramster owns and operates a Facebook application with about 400.000 users called “Courses 2.0”, which was voted as the 4^th best Facebook application by PC Magazine. The website also offers some chat rooms where the users are in real interaction with tutors or even with other users. Cramster implements a freemium model; it means that it counts with a free membership and a premium membership; the premium model, that is acquired by paying allow students and users to get extra content and receive access to Cramster`s premium services. However, the freemium model of the website permits users to submit just a 300 words text in free mode and about 1000 words text in premium mode.

Ethical Considerations

Students can easily get highly writing skills if Cramster is used ethically, due to this website allows users to get unstuck on any homework problem. If the aim of every student is to learn and perform well, the collaboration of Cramster will be helpful in their effort to get highest abilities; moreover, this website can help users to study successfully getting plenty of strategies that would help to enhance learning. Peer collaboration is an original strategy to develop student`s performance; Cramster allows the interaction among students worldwide with the objective of becoming better learners. As it was mentioned before, if Cramster is used ethically, students can do their own rectification task after getting the text corrected by this website in order to look any breach students have. On the other hand, there will be always students looking for shortcuts aiming to get an easy high grade, cheat and fake assignments in different subjects whether in math, science or any other offered on this website; it will be an easy task if Cramster is used as a deceitful tool. Cramster struggles everyday to eradicate cheaters; this is why, this website had banned individual students from the site after receiving complaints from professors. The fact that some individuals deceive shouldn’t stop learners who are honest from trying to do everything they can achieve well in their courses.

Importance in the School of Languages

Cramster is an important tool for learning in order to improve students writing skills; likewise, students can get a second feedback, besides the teacher`s one. The acquisition of the new vocabulary and the well use of the grammatical rules are quite important in the process of learning a second language; students can proofread each other’s works, correct each other’s homework, and give each other ideas on how they could improve. Teachers can get advantages of this site, if the point is to have highly motivated students, who are disposed to use all available resources to increase their knowledge and improve their ability to perform well in class; they can supervise the progress of the students testing grammatical rules of the learners in order to get the consolidation of vocabulary, grammar and lexical abilities regarding Writing composition.

http://www.cramster.com/

Written by

Juan Carlos Paez Roldan.

Mario Pinto Nocua