My enthusiasm for audio and video feedback received a bit of a reality check today. I thought I would impress my students who have just completed an assessed task on the subject of assessment and feedback by giving them feedback using a screencast -o-matic screencast. I think the process of producing the screencasts went well and the combination of text highlighting and my supportive comments seemed to me to be very effective.
That may still turn out to be the case, but one student who had already expressed a preference for written feedback, has written a reflective journal entry extolling the virtues of written feedback despite my enthusiasm for the asynchronous video cast. She says she had to watch the video twice to take in my points and to be able to make a note of the 'feedforward' points which I included. She feels that written feedback would be more convenient to revisit in future.
She also made the point that I assumed that all the students would have the facility for watching a video clip - but surely any device, whether PC, laptop, tablet or phone would enable a student to hear, and usually watch, a video clip?
Maybe I should go along with the idea of offering students choice of feedback modes.