Last Wednesday I met Max and the world I knew it filled with hope and promise of technology growing in the direction I had hoped it would. He introduced me to his drive app Voice Comments.
Voice comments allows you to leave a recording of your voice as a comment on a google drive document.
As a writing teacher I know that best feedback is person to person conferencing. Our voices are much more data rich than our writing. Tone can shift from reader to reader, but a recording of my voice is going to sound just like I sound.
Students need feedback to grow. The writer's conference is transformational in a writer's development. This is proven by really great educational scientists(I'll post research in another post). Voice recording feedback allows me to duplicate some of the important pieces of the writer's conference
Jennifer Roberts has been aspiring to provide her students with voice feedback and when she heard about this tool she created a screen cast of how to use Voice Comments step by step. I am hoping we will be able to provide a link or embed of that HERE
Since we found Voice Comments, several teachers have been working with it and sharing their experiences on Twitter.
I was lucky enough to host a conversation between Jennifer Roberts, Ric Reyes, Troy Cockrum, and one of the Voice Comments Developers Maxwell Brodie. The Full Google Hang out is below:
As connected educators we are eager to get our hands on new tools that address old challenges. We are eager to talk to designers, we are eager to dream while others are listening.
Please use the comment box to talk about the challenges you face responding to student writing, and what tools you have found. This is a conversation.
NOTES from the GHO
Topics:
- The problems with written response
- Why voice response is valuable (not about saving time, about being more effective)
- What Voice Comment allows you to do
- Your experience with VC so far
- -How long it takes
Ric- Pretty simple after initial setup; faster than using iphone voice notes bc already in gDoc
- -How it is different than written response
Ric- When writing or typing, by essay #40, I’m all over the place. With VC, I don’t get hung up in the motor skills of it
- -Your learning curve
Ric- The highlighting took some getting used to; goes away as soon as you click elsewhere, but all of it shows at the end. Considering ways to use this feature. Lose some formatting from gDoc.
- Uses other than responding to Ss writing
Kate- choral class singing
SAM -nice formative assessment tool.
Ric- Maybe differentiating for low readers; modeling reading skills?
Comments