Since the last post on Jing (screen capture) I have tried it out more intensively by making 45 videos for formative feedback on personal development. I received draft submissions from students, opened them on the screen, started the video capture and recorded as I went.

Lessons learnt …

  • Read through once only and highlight in yellow any areas where a comment should be made (a higher level of scripting than that means you may as well write the feedback first )
  • Live with imperfection. Unless you edit the feedback in an audio editor, Jing is one take only. Live with the odd, ‘errr…..’ … pause or stumble or else the videos will take a ridiculous amount of time.
  • Manage expectations: Jing feedback was sought once word got around, this created a rush at the last minute. For the sake of workload give cut offs, and only feedback on a pre-determined amount of work.
  • Opt out not in. Given the openness of feedback, being technically accessible by others and given the alternative nature of the approach brief students and tell them what you are doing and why, and offer an opt out. No-one chose this.
  • Practice makes efficient. The first handful of videos took forever. Had I not made a public commitment to do this I would have ditched it out of sheer frustration. It did get better.
  • Using other types of video in class meant that this was a familiar approach to students. It was in synch with classroom methods. For example, I used video feedback to playback a critique of a case study.
  • It saved an awful amount of time by removing the need for proofing my own feedback.

While it may seem labour intensive to offer 45 verbal feedbacks I was secure in the knowledge that 45 written feedback attempts would take an awful lot longer. The depth of the feedback was also more than could have been realistically achieved on paper. You can say a lot in 5 minutes.

What did the students think …

  • Students thought this was fantastic!
  • ‘Like a conversation’
  • Personalised
  • ‘It was like having a one to one tutorial’
  • Enabled them to work through changes one at a time with the video open and their work open at the same time
  • Only one technical glitch was reported
  • Lots of feedback is possible in this way

Other Jing ideas…

An alternative approach I saw recently was a tutor talking through the grade sheet. Giving a verbal commentary on why decisions were made as they were. A different take on Jing.

As a spin off from this work, experimentation shows Jing can work well with White Board technology too, so that in-class examples can be used and taken away. A blue tooth mic and you’re away …

(How to make a Jing feedback video is outlined here http://www.techsmith.com/education-tutorial-feedback-jing.html )