I love the fact that more and more Core teachers are encouraging online student writing. As an ESL teacher it allows me to ‘catch’ a lot more of my students’ academic writing, especially when I employ tools such as RSS aggregators and Netvibes. However, the ability to comment below what students have written doesn’t really satisfy that deep-seated urge to scribble in the margins and correct grammar, so I’ve recently taken to employing Diigo‘s annotation tools to provide my students with feedback on their blogging.
Instead of just writing, “Great effort, but you need to focus on writing in constant tense” I can simply send my students a blog reply that contains highlighted text that will reveal full annotations/comments if students rest their cursor on the highlighted sections.
Here’s an example:
http://www.diigo.com/annotated/ed436694f861d612e208b0adcd5510a8
The beauty of this is that my student/reader doesn’t even need any extra membership, software, or browser plugins in order to view intense commenting on their writing. As the teacher, all I need to do is install the Diigo toolbar, highlight and comment on sections of the student’s writing, and then choose “get annotated link” from the Diigo menus.
Voila! My trusty red pen has survived into the digital age, and metamorphosed into a Diigo toolbar. I know there are those of you who may want to argue against stifling blogging and expression, but as always, think about each student’s needs and what they’ll respond to and what they can cope with. Steady, timely feedback is what language learners need, so why not use technology to assist us with that task?
ESL/Humanities/Tech teacher at Shanghai American School, Pudong Campus (China)
Jonathan,
I like where you are going with this. So many times I am reading a blog post where the authors point looses strength because of all things in need of your new “trusty red pen metamorphosized into a Diigo toolbar.” Part of being literate in the 21st century is being able to be easily understood. We all know that people spend less time looking at words online than in traditional print text so it’s even more important to be clear.
Thanks for the Diigo toolbar tip, Jonathan. I suppose if my student doesn’t have a blog then I could bookmark the student’s writing that I annotate and then share that bookmark in my blog. Diigo has a handy post-to-blog feature for bookmarks. For a class, I could post something like a Carnival of Annotated Pages.
Cheers,
Tod
New blog post: Using Diigo Annotation Tools for Intensive Language Feedback http://www.utechtips.com/?p=1081Reply – Quote