Using Screencasting to Give Feedback for Academic Writing

Advances in social science, education and humanities research, 2023

The study aimed at revealing the students' perception and practices on the utilization of screencast feedback in writing class as digital video feedback where lecturers recorded their oral comments and screen-records the point they commented on the screen toward students' writing draft in the form of audiovisual or video. This research was a survey designed for the students in an academic writing class who had a two-month experience using "Screencast-O-Matic". By the end of the semester, they were asked to fill out 10 questionnaire items through Google forms. The participants were university students who were divided into three categories; competent writers, moderate writers, and incompetent writers at Universitas Islam Darul 'Ulum Lamongan, Indonesia. These categories were drawn from the scores of final drafts of their article writing. The findings revealed several underlying reasons beyond students' preference for screencast feedback to written feedback. They perceived screencast feedback positively as it was clearer to understand than only written one, easier to access anywhere at any time, and more helpful to assist them in revising their draft. Another finding indicated that self-motivation and discipline had an impact on the result of the draft revision, especially for competent writers. The conclusion drawn from the study was that students perceived screencast feedback more positively than written feedback. Therefore, the study had an implication for the lecturers of writing courses, especially in blended or online learning environments to make use of more sophisticated technology like screencast feedback to produce more understandable feedback.

Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy, 2012

Changing digital technology has allowed instructors to capitalize on digital tools to provide audiovisual feedback. As universities move increasingly toward hybrid classrooms and online learning, consequently making investments in classroom management tools and communicative technologies, communication with students about their work is also transforming. Instructors in all fields are experimenting with a variety of tools to deliver information, present lectures, conference with students, and provide feedback on written and visual projects. Experimentation with screencasting technologies in traditional and online classes has yielded fresh approaches to engage students, improve the revision process, and harness the power of multimedia tools to enhance student learning (Davis and McGrail 2009, Liou and Peng 2009). Screencasts are digital recordings of the activity on one's computer screen, accompanied by voiceover narration that can be used for any class where assignments are submitted in some sort of electronic format. We argue that screencast video feedback serves as a better vehicle for in-depth explanatory feedback that creates rapport and a sense of support for the writer than traditional written comments. "I can't tell you how many times I've gotten a paper back with underlines and marks that I can't figure out the meaning of."-Freshman Composition Student 1

KnE social sciences, 2024

Screencast video feedback is relatively new in writing class. Technology development leads the lecturer to provide feedback through the screencast video feedback. The students need screencast video feedback for guidance to write better. The students revise and edit their writing based on the comments given. However, the student's understanding might differ from the lecturer's intention. This study investigated students' perception of screencast video feedback and explored their self-regulated learning in responding to it. It used a qualitative study involving 10 EFL university students using semi-structured interview questions. The data were transcribed and analyzed using thematic analysis of students' perceptions of the screencast video feedback and their self-regulated learning. The finding showed the students had positive perceptions of the screencast video feedback. In addition, the students constructed self-regulated learning such as setting goals, self-motivating, monitoring, seeking help, adopting, and self-evaluating their writing. This study reveals the benefits to English lecturers to enhance the quality of the feedback in teaching writing.

European Scientific Journal, ESJ

Providing feedback to students’ written work has always been a challenging experience for English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers and learners. High-quality feedback promotes students’ engagement in learning processes and enhances writing performance. Traditional written corrective feedback has often been criticized for not being able to achieve its purpose. 21st-century technological development brought the necessity to provide audio and video feedback through screencast technology. The letter enables EFL teachers to provide multimodal feedback by recording the teacher’s screen while commenting on a student’s written work. Although there have been some studies conducted in the field of oral feedback via screencast, video feedback is still relatively new in many educational settings. For this reason, the paper aims to provide a brief overview of screencast video feedback, potential affordances and challenges faced by EFL teachers and learners. For this article, recent research ...

Nordic Journal of Digital Literacy, 2012

The purpose of this article is to promote the significance of feedback regarding students' working with written texts in higher education and to point out how technology can develop the quality and form of teachers' feedback. The results of studies and tests completed in eight separate subject areas demonstrate that video feedback simplifies and increases the efficiency of responding to students' work, as it allows the opportunity to achieve increased levels of precision and quality in the feedback process. Students emphasize their learning dividend and the inspiration they experience from working with this format. They actively use their teacher's comments and acquire a stronger emotional bond with him/ her as well.

Fourth Internet Conference Proceedings "FOREIGN LANGUAGE IN PROFESSIONAL TRAINING OF SPECIALISTS: ISSUES AND STRATEGIES", 2020

The value of the ability to write effectively promotes students’ progress through compulsory education to higher education in academic writing in English. At the university level in academic writing, the ability to write in a second language (English) is considered not just as a standardized system of communication but also as an essential skill providing students to study in the faculties which use English as means of instruction as it does in engineering faculty at Muğla Sıtkı Koçman University. Therefore, writing in the academic context and getting feedback on their work has an important role for these students in order to establish their academic goals. However, there is some published evidence stating that written comments on students' work referring to students’ dissatisfaction with academic feedback have been the subject of discussions (Cann, 2015HEFCE,2005). Giving feedback on students' products is a problematic area since students often claim that they get too little, too late and that they sometimes struggle to read or understand it (Rotheram,2009; Weaver,2006 as cited in Morris&Chikwa,2016). Traditional teacher-centered instruction is losing its place in education when today’s students are growing up as digital natives. They are mostly surrounded by digital technology; they read media, send news, get news, draw pictures, play games, and communicate on virtual platforms. Considering these attitudes of digital students towards traditional instruction, traditional feedback forms consisting of handwritten, summative and interlineal feedback (Siva, 2012) are also replaced by digital feedback. One way of giving feedback is the form of digital audio feedback. Mobile devices and collaborative learning environments are becoming common tools in education. There has not been any study testing Read &Write in Google document as a digital audio feedback tool on essay paper in academic writing courses to indicate whether or not it is an effective method for writing informative essays. Thus, to explore the effectiveness of digital audio feedback with the use of Read &Write in Google document as an online audio feedback tool within the context of informative essay writing in the first-year undergraduate engineering students in the academic writing course, a study was designed and carried out. Data gathered from the google form questionnaire shows that students are highly supportive of audio feedback. They explained that they felt the audio feedback helped them to see what they had missed out on their coursework and had more details than written comments so they could improve their written work.

Journal of English Education and Linguistics Studies, 2021

The current study aims to deepen knowledge on Indonesian English as a foreign language (EFL) lecturers' perception of screencast feedback, their feedback practice, and the consistency between their feedback practice and perception. To investigate the phenomena, five Indonesian university-level EFL lecturers and their EFL students (N=30) were recruited to participate in the study. The researcher employed several data collection techniques including open ended pre-survey, students' essay collection, think-aloud protocol, and semi-structured interviews. The results showed that the EFL teacher participants have positive perception and towards screencast feedback in L2 writing, which influenced their feedback practice. However, the study also discovered two inconsistencies between the teachers' perception of the focus and the type of feedback they provided and their actual practice. https://jurnal.iainkediri.ac.id/index.php/jeels/article/view/2339

Taking up a sizeable portion of wide-ranging discussions in EFL writing, feedback has received lots of interest from researchers and teachers. Discussion on the most effective and time-efficient feedback modes has been going on for decades. Today there are more technological alternatives to feedback provided through traditional means. One of these alternatives is screencast feedback, which enables EFL teachers to provide constructive feedback by recording the computer screen as the teacher comments on student work, usually by adding writing, drawings and voiceover. As screencast feedback is a relatively new practice, there is need for extending instructional knowledge about the nature of this feedback tool and how to use it successfully. For this reason, this study offers a brief overview of the studies carried out to investigate the effectiveness of this mode of feedback and discusses not only its major benefits but also downsides or challenges. In addition, building upon the theoretical and practical knowledge of this feedback tool, this study draws up some practical guidelines for effective use. Keywords: Screencasts, Writing Feedback, EFL Writing, CALL, Educational Technology.

Changing digital technology has allowed instructors to capitalize on digital tools to provide audiovisual feedback. As universities move increasingly toward hybrid classrooms and online learning, consequently making investments in classroom management tools and communicative technologies, communication with students about their work is also transforming. Instructors in all fields are experimenting with a variety of tools to deliver information, present lectures, conference with students, and provide feedback on written and visual projects. Experimentation with screencasting technologies in traditional and online classes has yielded fresh approaches to engage students, improve the revision process, and harness the power of multimedia tools to enhance student learning (Davis and McGrail 2009, Liou and Peng 2009). Screencasts are digital recordings of the activity on one's computer screen, accompanied by voiceover narration that can be used for any class where assignments are submitted in some sort of electronic format. We argue that screencast video feedback serves as a better vehicle for in-depth explanatory feedback that creates rapport and a sense of support for the writer than traditional written comments. "I can't tell you how many times I've gotten a paper back with underlines and marks that I can't figure out the meaning of."-Freshman Composition Student 1

Although the importance of feedback in academic writing is undisputed, it can often be lacking in clarity and quality. With the aim of making the feedback process clearer and more rewarding to learners and to build a learning community to encourage interaction and peer feedback, an action research project was carried out with two high-level IELTS preparation classes to combine the use of a class wiki with audiovisual screencasts to provide learners with both a space to share their writing and more meaningful teacher feedback. In this paper, data from said project are used together with previous studies to illustrate the benefits and potential barriers of using these Web 2.0 tools with writing classes. Studies on both tools have shown they are successful in isolation, yet this is the first known study where the two have been combined to enhance the overall feedback process and offer opportunities for deeper learning.