Screencasts in the High School Science and ESL classrooms

As stated in a previous blog (October 13), screencasts have been used in the HS science classes at International School Bangkok (ISB) to guide students through the steps of using Logger Pro on the Physics 9 course CD for about six to seven years now. These screencasts are very effective as they allow students to view the screencast at any time to learn, practice, review and reinforce the proper use of the tools and skills demonstrated. A screencast provides synchronous visual and auditory input with the ability to pause, rewind, and replay as needed.

Screencasts have yet to make their way into the ESL classrooms at ISB, as most of our lessons do not "lend themselves to fixed demonstrations" outside of our use of a fixed set of technological tools such as panthernet (ISB's online course management system), turnitin.com, and course wikis/blogs (7 Things...). However, after reading the article, 7 things you should know about...Screencasting, I would like to try using screencasting to bring together a synchronous and chronological visual and voice-over audio component to online editing of students' papers. In the article it states that teachers can

use screencasts to provide richer feedback on student performance than a marked-up paper offers. A screencast can show students what faculty are marking and let them hear the instructor’s narrative about the reasons behind those marks (7 Things...)

Given the twenty to thirty minutes it takes to edit one student's paper, most editing work takes place outside of the classroom—during office hours or at home. Either way, it is typical for a student not to be present when a teacher is marking his/her paper. For many students, this asynchronous nature of the editing and feedback component of the writing process can be challenging and even problematic and results in fewer learning opportunities, or opportunities to improve as a writer, as the student is a passive recipient of the feedback and often not able to completely and fully understand all the editing remarks and feedback received without the ability to conference with the teacher. Papers are often returned to students online or in person but with no, or limited, conference time. Teacher edits and feedback are provided as abbreviated editing symbols or text, which end up being indecipherable and incomprehensible input for too many students too often.

Having heard enough times that our handwriting is as bad as a doctor's handwriting, many teachers have moved away from handwritten edits and feedback of printed student work and instead request submission of file copies of a student's work that allow 'insert comment' and 'track/highlight changes' options using word processing problems such as Microsoft Word. Comments can be inserted as written text or spoken text. This has helped students make sense of the edits and feedback they receive. However, with increasing numbers of comments and highlighted changes (or hand-written feedback), the paper without a f2f or audio component becomes less manageable and facilitative of student learning from the editing process. The added benefit screencasting adds is the opportunity to see and hear the teacher discuss and explain the edits and feedback in synchronous and chronological order as they are noted. (Refer to my example marked up paper and sample screencast.) One can see that for a paper that receives a substantial amount of edits and feedback, after twenty to thirty minutes on a teacher's desk or computer, the paper has become the proverbial dreaded paper covered in RED ink (or highlights and comment boxes) that every student is horrified and embarrassed to have returned to them.

Red's legacy as the color used in correcting papers and marking mistakes goes back to the 1700s, the era of the quill pen. In those days, red ink was used by clerks and accountants to correct ledgers. From there, it found its way into teachers' hands.
(Aoki, Naomi. "Harshness of red marks has students seeing purple - The Boston Globe." Boston.com. Web. 21 Oct. 2009)

Receiving such a paper (after editing and feedback has been noted by a teacher) is often overwhelming and discouraging to students who see the edits and feedback as errors and mistakes they have made rather than potential learning opportunities. Screencasting again offers an advantage in allowing students to approach the editing process in a personal, step by step, and manageable manner.

My commenting on a paper, on the other hand, is personal, part of my relationship with my students. I mean it to be conversational, and sometimes my students take it that way, and then it's like passing notes in the back row. ("Red marks in the margins: a professor's take on the evolutionary art of grading | csmonitor.com." The Christian Science Monitor | csmonitor.com. Web. 21 Oct. 2009.)

Finally, using screencasting for editing student work allows for richer oral and written narratives, more active involvement of students in the editing (thinking) process, and ultimately the potential to build stronger student-teacher relationships and enhanced student learning.