Three Ways to Provide Feedback for Digital Student Writing

No discipline has experienced a greater impact from technology than writing.

Photo credit: Unsplash

Blogs, tweets, multimedia timelines, posts, texts…all of these short forms of writing have come about through new digital mediums. Classrooms that adopt these tools during literacy and content instruction are providing learners with more ways to express their thinking and convey information more creatively. I could not imagine schools without them.

Once they are embedded in practice, the next logical step as a teacher is to ask: How can I provide feedback for students through these mediums so their writing improves, as well as to celebrate their work? Here are three ideas.

Google

Recently I have received invitations from our 4th and 5th graders to comment on their writing via Google Docs and Slides. I really like the Comments and Suggestions features. Located at the top right of the file, you can highlight a section of the text and provide feedback for the owner. What the students have shared with me so far are finished products. Therefore, I have made general observations and asked thought-provoking questions to let them know that I read their work carefully and valued their effort.

WordPress

For younger students without a lot of experience in digital writing, transcribing what they write down on paper and posting it on a blog is a great way to model the writing process. For example, my son and a friend gave me a handwritten review of the Tom Gates series by Liz Pichon. I typed up their thoughts, saved the post as a draft, and then emailed their teacher with specific questions about the books they read. This feedback request was done through WordPress, my favorite blogging platform (see arrow).

I actually sent the request to their teacher, who will hopefully help them write a bit more about why the Tom Gates series is such a good one to read.

Evernote

I was on a mission to a classroom when a 4th grade student asked me to read her writing in the hallway. How could I say no? I compromised by taking out my smartphone and scanning an image of her writing with Evernote. This student’s writing was then saved as a note in her teacher’s professional portfolio, which I keep for all of my staff.

When I had time to sit down later, I opened up her note. Having downloaded Skitch, a native Evernote application, I was able to annotate right on her scanned work. This was also a finished piece of writing, so I celebrated what she did well and offered my thinking on possible ideas to consider for the future. This updated note was emailed to her teacher.

What digital tools do you find effective for offering feedback for the author(s)? How do you use them? Please share in the comments.

Nothing Wrong with a Little Rejection

I have to admit, things have been going well lately. My 5th installment on passion-based learning, posted on Powerful Learning Practice’s blog was selected for a March’s Editors Choice Content Award by SmartBrief. The manuscript for my first book, Digital Student Portfolios, looks more like a real book every day. The weather in Wisconsin allowed the students to wear T-shirts during recess today. Like I said, very little to complain about.

photo credit: Daniel Kulinski via photopin cc

These precipitating events helped ease the rejection of my article for the summer edition of Educational Leadership. Tentatively titled “Digital Book Clubs”, I wrote a narrative piece about how the students, staff, and parents in our school have all participated in accessing online resources as we engage in reading. I had a few people read it ahead of time; they thought it was a worthy submission.

What also helped in dealing with the fact that my article wasn’t good enough to make the cut was the feedback provided by ASCD. “I’m sorry to report that yours is one of the very good manuscripts we cannot publish. Because you have put so much work into this piece, I hope you will submit it elsewhere. Our editors gave it high ratings.” Although not specific to my article in general, the effort was appreciated.

This rejection is not my first nor my last. I am sure I will submit something in the future to Educational Leadership. What I can hang my hat on is that I was a learner of my own practice through the act of writing. What I learned during this process was invaluable, from drafting the initial piece, to revising and editing it to make it submission-ready, to subsequent revisions to improve upon it even more. As I came back to the text, each time I found an idea that led me back to why we tried these practices in the first place.

The difference in the spelling of “rejection” and “reflection” is only two letters. Maybe this is not a coincidence.

Using Technology to Personalize Learning in Elementary Schools

On Tuesday, October 15 at 4 P.M. CST, I am co-facilitating a webinar for Education Week. You can register for the free webinar here: https://vts.inxpo.com/scripts/Server.nxp?LASCmd=AI:4;F:QS!10100&ShowKey=16341&Referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2F

For my part, I am describing how technology can be embedded within best practice to facilitate deep levels of learning. Specifically, digital student portfolios are a tool my school is using. iPads and Evernote are the tools of choice. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough time or space to include this video tutorial. It shows how to set up a digital student portfolio in Evernote and input a student’s first learning artifact. Self-assessment and feedback are just a few of the learning activities that can occur when using technology in a meaningful way.

If you have questions and/or thoughts beyond what you see here or heard through the webinar, please share in the comments.

Writing Apps for Principals and Coaches

There are so many apps out there for different purposes when using the iPad. It is exciting and daunting at the same time. Specifically for writing about instruction observed in the classroom, a few apps at first glance seem to be great tools for providing feedback for staff and documenting evidence of learning.

Evernote (free)

What I like best about this tool is a) you can document what you observe audibly, visually and by typing, and b) this information can be accessed anywhere. What would this look like? Maybe you are doing instructional walkthroughs. A checklist of four main areas focusing on teacher and student language could be the template. After checking off what you see, language used by students and the teacher can be typed up to record more qualitative feedback. In addition, a photo of what you are seeing related to classroom dialogue could be taken with your iPad and added to the note. Once completed, the entire note can be emailed to the teacher or shared during a subsequent discussion. Simple instructions on how to create a checklist can be found here.

When you want to find a note, they are organized by notebooks or by tags for easy searching.

There are a few limitations I see with using Evernote for this purpose. First, I cannot find a way to easily export the checklist data to an Excel form. If you are looking for trends over time, it would be hard to use this data in Evernote’s format. Using Google Forms might be a better tool for this purpose. If there is a way to do this, my guess is either Bec Spink or Rob van Nood would have the answer.

Second, I wish there was a way to actually write using a stylus within Evernote, which leads into…

Penultimate ($0.99)

This app allows the user to write in notebooks using a finger or a stylus (I recommend a stylus such as Bamboo to avoid the smudges on the screen). You can write, sketch and erase plus add a picture in notebooks. Multiple notebooks can be created for individual classrooms. To share and read these notebooks, you can either email them out as a PDF or open them in another app such as GoodReader, iBooks or Kindle reader. More importantly, books or single pages can be sent to Evernote as their own note. What this means is you could combine your writing, text, audio and visuals all in one note on Evernote, albeit with a few preliminary steps. Check out this link on how to export Penultimate notebooks to Evernote using an iPad.

Notability ($0.99)

If you want to keep things simple and be able to house audio, visuals, text and writing all in one file when documenting classroom activities, Notability is the way to go. What it has that Evernote doesn’t is the ability to sketch and write within the note as well as typing text, adding visuals and recording sound. Also, the layout and controls are more user-friendly than Evernote and Penultimate. Notebooks are color coded and the notes themselves seem to be easier to read.

What could be improved with Notability is the ability to share notes with others. Right now, you can upload notes to Dropbox, but the audio and the rest of the note end up as two separate files. In addition, to share a note with audio right from Notability via email is difficult because the memory size of the audio may be too large. Evernote is better in this area because you can share notes as a web link. It stays as one file.

Conclusions

If you are just starting out, like me, in documenting learning experiences in the classroom, Notability may be the best choice. I know one school district in Wisconsin uses this app to document the amount of time ELL students are given to talk with peers about their understanding. However, if sharing notes is essential to the walkthrough and coaching process, Evernote + Penultimate would be the best tool. The ability to have access to these notes from anywhere is also key. In addition, Evernote just acquired Penultimate. If these two apps eventually meld into one, it might be the perfect tool for principals and coaches to write on the iPad.