Giving Digital and/or Online Feedback to Students

The presentation by Kristen Jameson and Linda Clemons, from the University of Minnesota's "Student Writing Center," in class on November 25, 2008, was very eye-opening for me. It looks like they are doing some great things with "SWS Online"--very much advanced from the traditional sit-down-together-one-on-one writing conference. See their website for more information. Also, check out the more general website on the writing center at UMN.

My first reaction to their presentation was, "This would be great to do with my own students, especially if I begin teaching fully online courses, or even partially online "hybrid" courses. I was a big "fan" of Donald Murray in graduate school--and one other guy who's name I can't think of right now--and I have twice tried courses where the students and I met as a group very infrequently, and the rest of the time was spent in individual conferences.

My second reaction to their presentation was, "Wow, this would sure take a lot of time" ... time, Time, TIME ... which is already an issue for all writing instructors who use a process-approach to writing and who try to provide their students with various forms of feedback, both formative and summative, throughout the process of each paper and throughout the course. (And not an issue at all for more traditional teachers who don't assign or read multiple drafts, and who only put a few comments and the grade on the final product ... much like my own freshman composition instructor!)

Of course, an "online" conference, using IM-ing or even Skype, might help to engage and motivate students who are not challenged, engaged, or motivated with more "traditional" teaching methods. But it would have to be carefully thought through and planned.

And I even like the idea of online peer review, but again, sorting out all the logistics seems daunting! And, would an online peer review even make sense to do in a computer lab where students are sitting right next to each other? Maybe, even quite possibly or probably. Students might write more, and they might approach response differently, given this new "medium" for peer review. But what would I use: a wiki, a chat room, a discussion board in D2L, ...?

I also like the idea, given either in class or in the textbook, Teaching Writing Using Blogs, Wikis, and Other Digital Tools, where a rubric is kept in digital form, opened each time a professor grades a paper, comments inserted directly into the rubric, the rubric saved under a different file name, and the rubric then attached to the paper, or, more digitally, emailed to the student. But, again, my concern is TIME.

TIME is also a concern for students emailing their papers to me, me saving and then opening each one, me reading and commenting using MS Word's Insert Comments and/or Track Changes features, and then me saving and emailing the paper back to the students. I like the idea, in theory, but in practice it still seems daunting. But I might have to give it a go to see how it goes.

Finally, TIME is also a concern for me if I choose to digitally record comments about a student's work, as both of my professors--Dr. Richard Beach and Dr. David O'Brien--are doing for me/us this semester. I think I heard that I would actually need two computers, one for the blog, or wiki, or document, or whatever, that I was looking at, reading, analyzing, and evaluating, and another one for the recording, with Audacity open and ready to go. The recording would have to be made, the MP3 encoding would have to be done (using LAME), the file would have to be saved, and then the file would have to be emailed back to the student--perhaps along with their paper. My college doesn't have a Media Mill server or feature, as the U of MN does, so I couldn't just email students a link to their comments.

And I wonder if students would listen to their comments, right away or even at all. When I received my digital comments from both professors this semester, I didn't immediately "open" them and listen, as I would if I got a hard copy of my paper handed back to me with notes in the margins. It's a new way of thinking for me. Maybe my students are already there, maybe not.

Also, my regular teaching load is 3 writing courses and 1 literature course each semester. Writing courses enroll 26 or 28 students, depending if the course is college-level or developmental, respectively, while literature courses can enroll up to 50 students. With this load and number of students, I don't think there's any way to give the kinds of feedback I've gotten this semester. Prof. O'Brien not only gave me recorded comments but also used the Word commenting feature to insert specific comments throughout my paper. And Prof. Beach gave me extended recorded comments. (Of course, there's also the difference between undergraduate and graduate level courses, I don't think my UMN professors are teaching more than 1 or 2 courses each semester, and my Reading course has only 12 students in it while my Digital Writing course has between 20 and 25.)

Reflecting on Creating a Podcast and Editing Audio

I've already posted my podcast, as you might already know, but I promised to come back and blog about the process and how I might use it in my teaching. And, if you've already read my reflection on editing video, you might already be able to guess what I'm going to say here.

I HATED the podcasting assignment, but I'm not quite sure why. It might have to do with struggling to find a topic that others might be interested in hearing about. But are my students always interested in what we talk about in class? No, not really, I'm a realist, but at least they are "present," with few distractions, to be able to take in, and perhaps contribute to, the discussion. With a podcast, they can listen to it whenever, wherever, but I'm guessing that they will NOT be sitting, listening, and doing nothing else.

Hating the podcasting assignment might also have to do with never having done any audio editing before, and the "learning curve," at least for me, was steep. Downloading Audacity and LAME wasn't a problem, but it seemed that "fine-tuning" the volume and other set-up things, and then actually recording the podcast, was excruciating. However, the editing was better, and was more fun the more I played with it. I even managed to find the Podsafe Audio site and was able to include some music in my podcast for my "intro" and "outro." Really cool music, I might add. (Thanks, again, to Mauricio Cuburu for "Disco Viejo.")

I should also say here that the Podcasting for Dummies book, second edition, by Tee Morris, Chuck Tomasi, and Evo Terra, was helpful ... but it was also a way for me to prolong the project, because I convinced myself that I had to read almost the entire book first, before sitting down to do anything.

Finally, how might I use podcasting in my classes? I'm not sure, but I do know who I could talk to, to get some ideas. A former colleague of mine, Jerry Shannon, who is now a Ph.D. student in Geography at the U of MN, used to teach freshman composition, both at ARCC and the U of MN. He was light-years ahead of me, and many others, in terms of technology, and he also had a service-learning component in his classes. While teaching at the U of MN, he affiliated his classes with a radio station somewhere, perhaps in one of the Minneapolis high schools, and he had his students create podcasts. I'm not sure what they created podcasts about, but here might be some ideas, based on the kinds of writing normally assigned in freshman comp:

• Personal Writing -- create a podcast about an event in your life that changed your thinking about others. Use the podcast to tell the story, to set the mood, and to get people thinking and reflecting on their own lives. Check out NPR's "This I Believe" for some ideas.
  
• Informative Writing -- create a podcast to inform your listeners about a process they know little about. Use the podcast to teach your listeners the process, to introduce them to an expert in the process, and to let them know where to find more information. Check out various NPR/MPR "stories" for some ideas.
  
• Argumentative Writing -- create a podcast to state your position on a local controversial issue, or to present your solution to a problem in your community. Use the podcast to state and support the reasons for your position, to acknowledge and address the various opposing arguments, and to persuade your listeners to either change their thinking about the issue or to at least consider your position more carefully. Check out various NPR/MPR "editorials" and "opinion pieces" for some ideas.

All of these podcasts would, of course, be preceded by the full reading, research, and writing processes, resulting in at least one draft, a peer review, a revision, and then a "script" for the podcast. Digital recorders would be required for interviews in the field, and microphones and headsets would be required in the computer labs. Skype interviews might have to be arranged and recorded somehow (Camtasia Studio? Gizmo?). Arrangements would have to be made with my college's Technology Department for storage space and for "processing," similar to the U of MN's Media Mill, so that the MP3 files could be "subscribed to" using RSS feeds or downloaded for playback.

And, now, all of this seems so clear and straightforward, and yet so time and resource intensive!

Planning an "Interview" Podcast

As you discovered in my previous post, I'm a bit behind on these two podcasting assignments. But that's not to say I've been doing nothing. Hardly. I've been obsessing. I've been reading. I've been worrying. I've been reading. I've been frustrating. (Just ask my wife!)

And, as I mentioned in my previous post, I'm not only trying to figure out all the technology, but I've been trying to focus my attention and efforts on PC applications, rather than Mac applications. So, in this case, for an interview podcast, I've been focusing on Gizmo, rather than Skype, along with Camtasia Studio and Sound Tap.

I've read the U of MN's "position" on Skype, since I was warned about Skype ahead of time by my wife (a U of MN employee), and I was swayed by the arguments. I do not at all like the idea of Skype "using" my computer to "route" other people's "calls" while I'm online. I also do not like Skype because, currently, Skype offers no way to record conversations.

Thus, I've found a reference in the Hendron book (p. 86) about Camtasia Studio for recording Skype video -- if I decide I need to use Skype for video -- and I've found references in the Podcasting for Dummies book (pp. 71-72 and 95-99) about using Sound Tap to record "any" audio being played through the computer. And, Gizmo, a Skype competitor (?), seems to be similar to Skype but it has the capability to record audio. I still need to check into Gizmo about video capabilities.

But my planning for the interview podcast is nearly complete. I plan to interview a friend from graduate school who is also my "adjunct" colleague at my college and who teaches English at Irondale High School. He is currently using a PBWiki in his classes -- after talking to me about them, and, after actually learning from me about them -- and I'm going to talk to him about how it's going, how he's using it, how his students are responding to it, etc.

So, again, stay tuned! I hope to have that podcast up soon!