Would you like to try screencast feedback but you’re not sure how to start? These quick wins offer a low effort, low risk way to practice the approach and build your confidence to use it.
Why this matters
I hope you were persuaded by my first post that screencast is a powerful way to give meaningful feedback to students. But if you’ve never tried it, you may be unsure, worried about the time and effort or choice of technology. First, let me reassure you, then I’ll suggest some simple ways to try it out. If you’re already raring to go, skip ahead to the Quick Wins below. Otherwise, let’s outline some basic assumptions and principles that should build your confidence:
It’s just a walk and talk
Screencast feedback is nothing more than a video recording of you talking through some kind of document: the audience hears your voice, and follows your ‘walk’ through the ‘text’ on-screen. It’s no more complicated than that.
You’ve done this before
Even before Covid, many of us were recording videos for teaching purposes, so you’ll be familiar with relevant technology. You already know what it’s like to talk to an unseen audience, whether live or listening later ‘asynchronously’. But here, instead of a narrated PowerPoint, you narrate your commentary over the text: no need to make slides or fancy graphics.
It’s not just for assessments
Screencast is a richer alternative to traditional written feedback on student assignments. But you can use it for any kind of ‘work’, from an essay to an email, from a complex diagram to a Web page. So look for opportunities to screencast anything that could benefit from spoken word rather than written commentary. And you can try some of the ideas below on colleagues, friends, or family before you commit to using it ‘for real’ with students.
Use whatever tools you like
You don’t need any fancy tech to make a screencast recording. Use the tools you’re comfortable with. For example, if you can press the ‘record’ button in a Microsoft Teams meeting, then you can make a screencast! Zoom, Teams, Mediasite Mosaic, QuickTime – all of these and more can be used to record your screen and voiceover. See the University of Bristol Digital Education Office resources for guidance and ideas.
No need to edit: mistakes make us human
Screencast recordings only need to be productive, not perfect. Part of its power is its personal touch: don’t worry about um’s and ah’s and misspeaking. Unless the cat walks across your keyboard at a critical moment, you should only need one take. And don’t worry too much about trimming the start and end of your video. As long as your voice is clear and the screen is readable, you’re good to go.
No need to take notes
As with anything on which you need to provide feedback, you will normally have read through the target document at least once, so you know more or less what you want to say. For longer documents, it’s probably worth making brief bullet points of the things you want to cover, and/or highlight text or insert brief comments (e.g., in Microsoft Word). These will act as cues and signposts as you talk through the text. If you find yourself writing copious notes, let alone a ‘script’, then you’re making too much work for yourself, and rather defeating the point of using your voice ‘in person’.
Quick Wins to start using Screencast
With those basics out of the way, take a look at the ideas below, and try these simple, targeted screencasts that will test your tech, and your technique. For more detailed guidance, see the How to Screencast — good practice guide v1.2.
Quick Win 1: record your replies to an email
Email messages can be overly long. And replying in writing can just make matters worse! Try recording your reply instead. Talk through the original message, responding to its key points. It’s more personal. It also reminds us that in the ‘old days’, we used to pick up the phone or drop by someone’s office instead of writing them a long letter!
Quick Win 2: make a mini tutorial
Give screencast feedback to a whole class, focused on a specific document or activity. For example, talk through a previous assessment exemplar, the unit guide, an assignment brief, a post in a Q&A forum, or the termly student feedback. This can be a more engaging way to help students understand the document, especially if it’s long or complex.
Quick Win 3: invite friendly fire
Give screencast feedback on a friendly colleague’s draft paper or report (or anything they’ve asked for feedback on: it could be an outline of a presentation, a new Blackboard layout, a lesson brief, a grant proposal, or a promotion application). Then ask for their feedback on your feedback.
Quick Win 4: the power of numbers
If you’re not ready to provide screencast to individual students at scale, practice with feedback on group work ‘artifacts’. Then ask the team to listen through together, make notes, and respond to you with action points. This can be useful if you have a large class and limited time: with student groups of five or six, you can give the whole class the benefit of Screencast at a fraction of the cost.
Quick Win 5: selected individuals
Outside of class, you can target screencast where it will help particular individual students. For example, personal tutees and dissertation students. You could narrate feedback on their application for a job or further study, their CV, draft chapters, work plans, learning journal entries – anything where the personalised approach of Screencast will help them learn.
Finally, don’t forget to ask for feedback on your feedback from your audience! How useful do they find it? What could you improve? This will help you refine your approach and build your confidence. (And of course, let me know how you get on: I need feedback too!)
What’s next?
Future episodes in this series will cover:
- Foundations of dialogic screencast: the theory and empirical research that underpins screencast as a feedback method
- Developing screencast practice: how you can refine your technique, improve efficiency, and maximise the value of feedback you deliver to students
- Scaling up and expanding use: ideas for how screencast can be used more widely, and how this dialogic approach can be part of learning conversations in current and future curricula
Meanwhile, try some Quick Wins. And do give me your feedback!
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