The Writing Process & Video Feedback

This is a bit of a followup to my last post about our cross-curricular writing project about Andrew Jackson with language arts.


As I was going through the process of grading all 100+ essays (20 hours of winter break...well spent...) I recalled a foggy memory of reading about someone who used screencasting tools to provide audio-visual feedback to their students in lieu of the standard written feedback...which for me consists of a lot of chopped off thoughts scrawled on a page, penmanship declining as I slog through the papers. So after grading about 60 essays, off to Twitter I went and was reminded that Greg Kulowiec was the one who wrote the original post, which included a link this blog entry . Anita Swigart also had experience with it as well. Bolstered by their insights I decided to give it a go...if you're curious to know how it went, read on. Otherwise, I'm sure there are better things you could do...

For starters, you need to make sure that your student has completed their writing in Google Docs and shared it with you, and granted you editing privileges. Otherwise, there's no way to screencast the feedback...


For the longest time I have used Screencast-O-Matic for all my screencasting needs. It has been my standby and I have nothing but love for it.  However, I decided to switch it up to Jing this time around (that's what the others had used) to give Jing a try, and because I could quickly and easily upload my feedback to Screencast.com, and then easily paste the link to it right in to the Google Doc (student essay) that I was reading . So, with that all in mind here are the steps that Greg provided:


The Process:
1. Run Jing - a little yellow sun will appear on the top of the screen
2. Choose your workspace to record
3. Begin recording and commenting on the student blog entry.
4. When the recording is done, click "share with screencast"
5. Login to your Screencast account and retrieve the URL for the video.  I also suggest renaming the file with the student name and project.
6. Paste the URL into the comment section below the student blog entry and you are done.  Now the student has authentic communication about their writing.


I slightly modified the process...
1A. I read the student's essay first and made a couple of minor written notations. One, to help them follow along with the audio, and two, to help guide me as I gave the feedback. Less awkward pauses and "uhms...."
1. Run Jing - a little yellow sun will appear on the top of the screen
2. Choose your workspace to record
3. Begin recording and commenting on the student blog entry.
4. When the recording is done, click "share with screencast"
5. Login to your Screencast account and retrieve the URL for the video.  I also suggest renaming the file with the student name and project.
5A. Once the file is uploaded to Screencast.com it automatically "copies" the link to your "clipboard" - no need to retrieve the link.6. Paste the URL on the top (or bottom) of the student's essay...and boom, you're done.


Reflection:
I think I liked it...  My one hesitation is that in the long-run I think it took an extra minute or three per essay, which can really add up with a 100+ essays. That won't always be feasible for me, or for many others out there.  I'm sure if I do it again, which I think I will, I can become more efficient at the process, specifically with my feedback. Most recordings were 4-5 minutes (Jing has a 5 minute limit). I know I can be verbose, so if I could trim the recordings to 1-3 minutes, I'd be golden.  Some students didn't share their essays with me for one reason or another, so I had to switch back to the old school written feedback and I found myself thinking "I wish I could just record what I'm trying to say, rather than write it out by hand..."  I loved that I could provide a bit of a visual for them to look at, but more importantly that I could really explain what I was looking for and where they could improve their work.


When I asked the students about it today, the student response was almost unanimously positive.  In fact, I had two 8th graders email me last night: "Thank you so much for all your help in the making of my paper. I really like how you did the screen cast, that really helped me and got me interested in fixing my paper to try and get a 100%." and   "The new way you corrected my paper I think was very helpful for me and I think you should use it again if we type a paper on docs." I think that sums it up...8th graders aren't known for emailing their teachers to thank them for critiquing their work. Also, those that did not receive the feedback were bummed and as we were in the lab today (and yesterday) those were the students that required more one-on-one work with me. 


Though this example screencast isn't free of "uhms" and pauses, it gives you an idea of the finished product.