At Friday night’s prestigious NZ Hi-Tech Awards in Christchurch, Writer’s Toolbox won the 'Most Innovative Hi-Tech Creative Technology Solution' category, sponsored by Tātaki Auckland Unlimited.

Says company founder Dr Hunter:

“We’re humbled by this honour and grateful to have the work recognised like this.  It’s been a long journey.  But we built Writer’s Toolbox on the belief that every student can become a skilled writer—writing should never hold you back.”

The Writer’s Toolbox story has been a 20-year research and development project.  Originally based on Dr Hunter’s work at the University of Auckland, Writer’s Toolbox uses Composition Theory, Discovery Learning, and advances in Neuroscience to improve writing ability.  The result is an innovative cloud-based writing tool used by schools around the globe to teach writing across the curriculum. 

At a time when AI is being questioned, the Writer’s Toolbox team explored a radically different route.  Instead of giving answers, the patented-AI inside Writer’s Toolbox has been built to teach a student—whatever their age or ability level—how to write.  And it’s working.  Schools using Writer’s Toolbox report increased student confidence, higher performance outcomes, and improved student engagement.  Even less time spent marking!

Says Joss Matthews, Whakatāne High School, English Department & CoL Written Language Support: 

“It's just an amazing tool that has changed the lives of students, it's empowered students to make decisions about their learning that has given them success and they have earned it, it hasn't been fed to them from a teacher, they own that success.”

Industry bodies have also acknowledged the impact that this piece of New Zealand educational ingenuity is having.  In New Zealand, an ERO literacy report revealed students using Writer’s Toolbox enjoyed writing effect scores double those normally experienced.  

The same has been seen across the Tasman.  A recent four-year study of 71 Queensland schools and 79,000 students showed writing improvement rates of schools using Writer’s Toolbox were between two and ten times higher than the rest of the state when assessed against NAPLAN writing results.

With a head office in Auckland, Writer’s Toolbox has over 60 staff across New Zealand and Australia.