I use a tripod to suspend a Flip camera about 2 feet above the students papers and then record myself reading their essays (or whatever), making corrections, asking questions, and writing short comments or abbreviations. When students get their papers back from me, I also give them a cd of the recording session. They see their paper as I write quick comments on it, and they hear my voice. This process provides far more information for students to base improvement upon, and often takes less time than writing lengthy comments that students have hard time deciphering and interpreting.
The student and parent feedback regarding this process has been very positive and appreciative. I often hear parents telling me that their child watched the video many times -- some students have even done a FlipBack, which is a rebuttal or essay revision session in which they videotape themselves giving a message back to me.
Through this grant/award, I would like to be able to get the rest of the teachers at our school to adopt/adapt this process.
Comments
As with most new ideas, every teacher that tries this process, adapts it to fit their needs and continues (accelerates) the innovation cycle. For example a few years ago I created a "substitute orientation video" that gives a sub a tour of the room, then, another teacher adapted the idea and used a Flip Video camera to record themselves giving instructions to the students directly... the sub just played the video and the students went to work! Great idea.
