FTT - Kaizena Voice Comments

What Would You Like to Say to your Students About their Writing?

@joe_edtech

I'm not sure if this is normal behavior, but when I graded essays, I was almost always talking to my students about their writing - out loud - even though they weren't there in my living room when I was grading. And although I sometimes said it very loudly, apparently they couldn't hear what I was saying. That is a real shame because some of those comments were pure gold!

The fact of the matter is that good writing is conversational, and the best way to help a student rethink and revise their writing is through personal conversation. Google Drive made it a lot easier to carry on a conversation with students in text, but sometimes it is very difficult to determine tone in a text message, especially for students. Wouldn't it be nice if our students could hear the things we have to say about their writing?

Kaizena is available on the Chrome Webstore

If you install the "Kaizena Voice Comments" App on your Chrome browser then you can actually carry on a real conversation with your students about their writing projects. Instead of inserting a text comment into a section or line of the paper, the Voice Comments App allows you to give verbal feedback on the entire piece of writing, or on specific lines.

In an increasingly digital world, this could be a great way to engage kids in the writing process. I would likely use Kaizena Voice Comments with my students at the beginning of the writing process. Imagine being able to hold writing conferences with every student after every draft without the hassle of trying to schedule those conferences. And to be able to do all of that without getting out of my comfy chair in the living room, again, pure gold!

For a step-by-step direction sheet on getting started with Kaizena Voice Comments in Google Drive, click here. Also, you can feel free to visit the DHS GAPPS Resources page at any time.

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Have an idea for using Voice Comments with your students? Please share with us in the comments box below.