Accuse me of milking the flipped classroom post and Scott Meech’s lengthy comment and I would say – damn skippy!
But cute cows are not the focus of this post. The focus is technology in the classroom! More specifically, screen-casting (recording) your grading process for students to watch at their leisure.
This is a very interesting concept. Teacher has a set of essays. Sits down at their desk that is rigged with a camera pointing at the papers. The teachers starts grading as they normally would, but with the additional ability to sound out their thoughts for the student benefit. Comments that would normally be said under ones breath can now be vocalized and recorded.
“Woah, that sentence runs on for a while!” or “I’m having a really hard time following the train of thought here…you may need to reorganize your essay by…” or “Sandy, next time try avoiding SMS language such as lol, brb, and others”
This is really cool. The teacher is combing the grading process and the elaboration into one. This saves time theoretically since teachers have provided verbal feedback in the screen-cast
Here are the pros and some of the cons:
PROS
- students gets corrections and teacher’s train of thought at the same time
- saves time as it requires fewer conferences about the assignment
- makes the grading process transparent
- helps students understand how a teacher grades
CONS
- requires a permanent set-up restricting the teacher to one grading area
- requires additional equipment in the form of a decent webcam that would be good enough to show the corrections clearly
- puts added stress on the process as teacher is always “live”… sure things can be edited later
- how many kids would take the time to watch a 15 minute video of their essay being graded and discussed? in face-to-face meetings, they at least have to listen
- 60-100 videos to upload to a server depending in how many students you have
- a system needs to be in place to secure the graded works for the privacy of the students
Although I love the concept in theory, in practice it is a lot less practical. A good alternative would be to do as one of my colleague’s does – fire up the ol’ laptop and record your voice making comments about the essay/paper/project and upload. The comments are fresh and will come out quick and on point.
What do you think? Chime in and let us know how you feel about recording the grading process?
Technology in the Classroom 
I don’t think you need a permanent rig to do the video. Mobile phones are so compact and have more than decent video cameras that merely setting up a simple rig (I’m thinking of a modified mic stand) that can easily be taken down and stored away. The problem I think we would have is the uploading all those videos. If you teach 80 students, uploading 80 videos will take a lot of time-even if their only 10-15 mb each. Once in a while it can be a really good idea, especially if a student needs a lot of feedback, this is a way for that student to have it, review it again and again and internalize it.
This is a really good post and addresses some serious issues when it comes to students and language used. Text is influencing so much around us with anything from sms for business to short note taking. I agree though, it has both its pros and cons and some really interesting points raised here. Thanks for sharing.
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