Using Voice Authoring in Online Feedback Darren Reynolds & Kevin Lowman
Who am I? Associate Professor in Bio-Sensing Research (HLS/DAS) Interests: teaching, students, research & football Joined UWE in January 2000
Who is Kevin? Web Applications Manager (IT Services) Interests: computers, online-TLA, BB & football Joined UWE in June 2006
What did we do? Academic year : Investigated the use of a voice authoring tool (wimba) to provide online audio feedback through the Blackboard environment via the offline making system
The Module 1 st year module ~ 55 students 30 credits Variety of assessment
The Module The Earth Big bang to how everything works on planet earth in 20 weeks! 2 elements of coursework
The Module
Excellent module pass rate (~90%) Good scores (module questionnaire) Diverse student cohort Suitable module for testing
The Assessment
The Feedback Between 7-10 minutes of audio feedback per submission No written comments or annotation Just the sound of my voice!
Practical Issues Needed two displays Head Set That’s it!
Voice authoring
Off-line marking tool
Exported to Blackboard
Technical Issues Linking the audio feedback to blackboard via the offline marking tool required the insertion of HTML text for eventual display in BB
Technical Issues Wimba voice authoring tool Off line marking tool Blackboard
What does it sound like?
What did the students think? n=30 from a possible 55
What did I learn? Recording feedback at work is problematic (shared office) Recording feedback at home can problematic (kids)
What did I learn? It made a real difference to how students engage with their feedback 5 minutes of audio is a lot of detail The students liked it – overwhelmingly
What did I learn? As academics, how we provide feedback is culturally engrained within. I really don’t like the sound of my own voice!
What’s next? What can I do with online feedback as opposed to, what can online feedback do for me….. Rethink the assessments we set in the first place, make them fit for purpose (with or without online marking).
What’s next? Mark entirely online - provide audio and video feedback using the normal Blackboard Content Editor
What’s next? Implementation for 2013/2014
What’s next? Without the need for any downloading or uploading of files – single platform
Thanks