Digital feedback

As part of my Georgia Teacher Open Online training, I had to explore different methods of giving digital feedback.  The training gave several suggestions for digital feedback:

• linking to outside resources
• leaving an audio recording
• images for an excellent job
• recording from synchronous sessions
• videos

I  have already been using outside resources and videos with my online class.  I don't use them as immediate feedback often enough though, and this was a good reminder to do so.

Images for an excellent job actually seem a childish to me.  I think it can be a fine thing, but it is not my thing.

The suggestion that struck me though was giving online students feedback through an audio recording rather than through written feedback.  There is something powerful about the human voice, and in many cases it is actually easier to record the feedback than to write.

So, after having read through the material on the TOOL website, I thought I'd check it out. I had assignment my students to make a Prezi on food webs.  I thought that audio would be an easy way to give specific feedback on this assignment.   I tried the Evernote site suggested by TOOL, but didn't really like it.  So instead, I went to online-voice-recorder.com.  I found this site easier to use.  I uploaded my file to Soundcloud.  In hindsight, I might have just used Soundcloud to record it.  Anyhow, here is an example.

Anyhow, here is a file giving feedback on the assignment.

Sample Audio Feedback 


I mentioned other ways to give specific feedback above, but I wanted to give one example of one I actually used.