8 December 2006
Russell Stannard
Westminster lecturer Russell Stannard is videoing himself marking essays so that students get the most out of feedback. He
reports on small-screen success
Imagine you videoed yourself every time you marked a student's work. Imagine you could open up a student's essay on your
computer screen, press a button and from that moment on everything you said and any corrections you made on the work
were all recorded on video. If you highlighted something, underlined a spelling mistake or talked about the organisation of the
essay, it would all be recorded. Then you simply clicked a button and e-mailed the video to the student. They could then play
it back, and listen and watch as you commented on their essay. You could get them to watch the video and then redraft their
essay. Moreover, it wouldn't require any fancy software, just standard screen recorder software that works at a click of the
mouse.
This is already happening at Westminster University. Students receive live video recordings of me correcting their essays.
Early results are encouraging. Students are taking much more interest in the feedback they receive. The amount of
information that can be provided by the teacher is much greater, and students feel it is the nearest thing to a one-to-one
feedback session. With recent discussions on improving feedback in higher education, this may be just the thing universities
are looking for. It is powerful yet incredibly simple to use and provides documented proof of feedback.
So how does the technology work? The student e-mails an essay in text format to the tutor. The tutor opens the file and
activates the software.
Everything that the tutor then does on screen is recorded as a video: every mouse move, underlining and correction. If the
tutor has a microphone plugged in, any comments they make are also recorded. Once the feedback has been completed, the
video is compressed into a format that students can view on their computer and is sent back to them.
It doesn't matter what text programme the student uses because the software simply records the screen.
Research is at an early stage, but is causing widespread interest. Most lecturers add notes in the margins of students'
essays, normally fewer than ten words. However, because tutors can talk as they correct the work, much more detailed and
complete feedback can be given.
In Westminster's research, based around an "English for academic purposes"
course, the students are told where the problem is and how it might have come about, but are left to correct the mistake
themselves. This forces them to watch the videos and then redraft their essays. Whereas the total number of comments on a
"normal" feedback system might amount to a quarter of a page, if the comments from the videos were written down they
would take up more than a whole page of writing. For example, traditional correction of grammar in an essay might include a
few notes about the type of mistake that has been made, whereas with the video the teacher can explain where the mistake
might have come from.
The power of the software lies in its simplicity. There is a small amount of extra time involved because the videos have to be
compressed before being sent to the student, but apart from this it really is a "live"
recording of your feedback session. And because the software simply records the screen, any tools you use when correcting
on screen will come out on video. So, for example, if you use a "highlighter" facility to point out a mistake or underline a
particular word, it all shows up in the video. This makes feedback both oral and visual, and therefore suitable for different
learning styles.
Tests so far have shown there is a strong fit between the technology and language teaching as the video feedback can
Times Higher Education - The spelling mistake: Scene one, take one http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&story...
2 of 2 13-Mar-2008 8:05 AM
include information about syntax, grammar, spelling and choice of vocabulary. However, other ideas for using the technology
have also emerged. On an information and communications technology course, I marked essays on the topic of using
"interactive whiteboards" in the normal way. Then I opened up a text file, turned on the screen recorder and began to
produce a "general feedback video" where I talked through common mistakes, organisation of essays, good points that were
made by some of the students and so on. Afterwards, I produced an essay plan explaining how I would have organised the
answer.
The video was compressed and sent to all the students.
These general class feedback videos are particularly useful as they are quick to make and can cover a lot of material. And
on an English course I realised there were several students making a particular grammatical mistake. I produced a feedback
video that was more like a grammar lesson, providing information about the point, writing up examples and then sending the
recording to all the students. Of course these ideas are not limited to higher education. They could be used in any course at
any level.
Many teachers and lecturers are also citing the possibilities for distance learning. Michael Thomas, an associate professor of
English as a foreign language in Japan, who has been exploring the feedback videos with his own university students,
believes the idea could be invaluable for distance-learning courses.
"Many distance-learning courses would really benefit from this idea as they often lack personal contact with the tutors," he
says. "It could add a whole new dimension to student-teacher feedback, as the technology can be used with a minimum of
knowledge by students and teachers alike."
The first step in setting up the videos involved identifying the technology that could be used. There are a number of screenrecorder
software packages. Screen recorder by Matchware is very easy to use (a click of a button to start recording your
screen) and can be effective. Camtasia and Captivate allow greater editing facilities and compression options.
I chose Camtasia because the latest version allows you to include a small video of yourself in the corner of the screen so that
the students not only see your computer screen and hear your voice, but can see you as you mark their work.
The second step was to look at the kind of feedback provided. Is it better to provide direct correction of the mistakes within
the videos or simply to highlight mistakes, but get students to correct the work themselves? The research findings were
contradictory but it was decided that the most effective way of getting students to use the videos was not to correct the
mistakes but rather to point out where they were, suggest what might be the cause of them, and leave it up to students to do
the corrections in the redraft. This forces students to work with the videos and extract the information provided in them.
The software does not only have to be used for feedback. Screen recorder software can be used to teach in all sorts of
areas. For example, you can open up a software package such as Adobe Flash, turn on the screen recorder software and
demonstrate ways of using Flash, talking and commenting as you do so. Such video presentations have proved to be very
popular with students. Will Whitlock from Westminster's Educational Initiative Centre, which funds the project, says the
centre is looking at more projects in this area and that the feedback videos have created "a lot of interest".
The next step is to do some comparative studies. Are the videos effective learning tools? Do they result in improved drafts
against traditional methods and what do students feel about them?
Does it make the whole process of feedback more interesting? We should have some answers early next year.
Russell Stannard is a principal lecturer at Westminster University's department of computer science. An example of
feedback on grammar he has produced can be viewed online, although not at full screen size, at:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZ1y4t6ggQs
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