March 1, 2013

Riki Thompson: Ditching the red pen for personalized video “veedback” on student writing

Dr. Thompson is an assistant professor of Rhetoric and Composition in the Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences department at UW Tacoma. In her writing courses, she has often used technology tools such as Camtasia to grade student essays using a form of video feedback that has been dubbed ‘veedback’. Dr. Thompson and a colleague recently published an article in The Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy (JITP) about their experiences with the tool, concluding that “screencast video feedback serves as a better vehicle for in-depth explanatory feedback that creates rapport and a sense of support for the writer than traditional written comments.”

The goal: “My goal is to find a way to use the more informal communication technology tools to help students understand that I am having a conversation with them about their paper, not editing it. I’m trying to create a change around how we teach writing.”

Benefits for students: “The main thing is that this audio format gets rid of the red pen in feedback. It moves to a conversational format. When I give feedback through veedback, students say, ‘I can hear you talking to me,’ and they didn’t seem to be as stressed. I knew that there was something there; that I was making a difference. It’s motivated me to use this tool for this purpose. It feels like a more intimate connection. It’s also changing the power dynamic.”

Challenges: “Flexibility and having tools that allow mobility have probably been the biggest challenges with using audio feedback tools for me. The other problem was saving files in a way that was accessible to everybody. At Tacoma, there are still a lot of students who don’t have the latest tools at home, or they’re still working on a really old system that doesn’t have new media cards.”

Advice: “Get on the radar of the technology people on campus, and find out who your peers are. Don’t expect that it’s going to take less time; there’s a learning curve and it might take more time. Be flexible and check in with the students throughout the quarter to see if it’s working and if you need to make changes. Mid-quarter assessment is vital when using new tools. You have to be willing to say, okay, we’re going back to paper (or other traditional means). Because if they’re not getting it, students fail to learn the content, and that’s not worth it.”

Links: JITP article “Talking with Students through Screencasting: Experimentations with Video Feedback to Improve Student Learning” with co-author Meredith Lee

The UW Tacoma Teaching Forum blog, created and updated by Dr. Thompson

Dr. Thompson’s faculty web site

Learn More

Read the full Provost report on how UW faculty are enhancing teaching with technology.