Information and digital literacy in education via the digital path

This year, I’ve been teaching all of my math classes both virtually and face-to-face. The boarding school where I teach has brought some students back to campus, but most of our international students were not able to return. This means that I teach each class in person and then again, online, to my international students. To give both groups the same engaging experiences and learning opportunities, I’ve had to learn some new tricks. One tool that has helped immensely is using screencasting for feedback on projects and work. Screencasting is a great way to make instructional videos, but I have also found it to be extremely useful for providing guidance and critique, especially in the virtual setting.

To make peer feedback more focused and meaningful, I’ve found it helpful to define quality feedback, provide structured routines, and teach feedback as I would any other core skill.

If you have ever spent hours grading your students’ essays and wondered, “did anyone read the comments I left for them?” You should try using the Google Docs add-on called JoeZoo Express.

JoeZoo Express is a Google Docs add-on that lets you add voice and text comments to your students’ Google Docs. JoeZoo includes the option to use more than 90 pre-made comments as well your own canned comments. And you can record your voice to use in comments. But what makes JoeZoo Express special is a built-in student engagement tracker.

Students work on the feedback provided to them to bring the best out in their performance. However, there can be a possibility that students are getting the right feedback which hinders their growth. Without having the correct feedback it is impossible for students to work on their weak areas. As educators, the feedback provided needs to be of sort that can direct students towards better results.

One of the most heartening parts of the recent Libraries Global Excellence Tour was hearing each and every speaker emphasise the importance of putting users front and centre of everything we do in libraries. This includes reimagining existing services and creating brand new ones.

In the crushing pressure to collect evidence of impact, to show usage figures that rely on legacy measurements, this can easily be sidelined. As Erik Boekesteijn described, the job of the librarian is “curating curiosity. We need to listen to our users”.

The user experience of both physical and digital spaces matters. Its inspiring to see so many libraries put this at the fore of their planning and creating services with a bit more empathy.

The following conceptions of feedback were offered by a group of students studying to become physical therapists. They were asked to recall a situation during their time in higher education when they felt they’d experienced feedback. Then they were asked a series of questions about the experience and about feedback more generally: “What is feedback? How would you describe it? How do you go about getting it? How do you use it?” (p. 924) The goal of the study was to investigate students’ conceptions of feedback. Student conceptions involve underlying personal beliefs, views, and ideas, unlike student perceptions, which explore how the feedback is understood.

Example how-to: feedback to students. Build your feedback skills in 4 minutes! Learn how to acknowledge the essentials and not overwhelm learners, allowin

Using technology to support students’ progression over time.

Students can hear me explain what I am doing and why I am doing it as I provide feedback on how they can improve their written assignments.

This post is a personal example of social learning and serendipity which led to learning about how acrostics can be used and the creation of three animated videos.

Last week I was following the conference hashtag #AHEConference2019  for the international Assessment in Higher Education conference and wishing I was there in person. However thanks to the many colleagues tweeting I was able to pick up some interesting points being shared. Two tweets in particular shared photos of slides for two of Professor Sally Brown’s presentations in which she had created acrostics to explore principles for feedback in one and learning outcomes in another.

Meaningful feedback is a very important part of any learning environment, allowing learners to monitor and track their performance, while making sure they’re on the right path towards their goals. Feedback is also a valuable tool for educators, with discussions with learners helping content creators to assess the effectiveness of their materials and improve processes.

Traditionally, we give and receive feedback at the end of projects, assignments, and units. But is this the best way to ensure progress? Researchers are saying it’s not, especially when it comes to encouraging creativity. For optimal academic achievement, teachers and students should consider placing feedback somewhere in the middle. In their study, “An Inductive... Read More