Students in tech writing have turned in two major assignments so far: a rhetorical analysis and an Internet resource guide. I've been using iAnnotate to grade, and I wanted to share a little bit about the process.
First, to overview the mechanics of document production and delivery in class: students generally write in Pages (though some do write either all or parts of their document on their personal computers), email each other drafts as PDFs and use iAnnotate to give feedback, and submit final copies as PDFs to SugarSync. I then open their files in iAnnotate and grade them, and email them back to the students.
After grading 2 sets of 24 papers, I have to say, I'm quite pleased with using iAnnotate PDF to grade. Generally, I make 2-3 comments per page, using the highlight tool in yellow and making a comment attached to it. Then, after reading the document, I make a final comment in a red comment box on the first page with a grade. Here's a few images from a student who gave me permission to share a bit of her work:
This is from a students' Internet resource guide (and you can get a sense of some of the formatting students are able to do on the iPad as well). The highlighted text means that there is a comment if a user hovers over them. You can see a few of the comments I've given.
There are a lot of things I like about grading on iAnnotate:
1) The file system in the app helps me keep and organize all the graded work.
2) My comments are clearly linked to text, with no messy hand-written arrows (like a comment on a printed paper).
3) Unlike in MS Word, I can't get bogged down in focusing on mechanics, because there is no track changes editing. Instead, I'm forced to look for trends and make comments and explain mechanical issues. This prevents what I would call "teacher as editor" and instead helps me focus on being a teacher, rather than a proofreader or editor who is simply annoyed with errors.
4) The single-tasking of the iPad keeps me focused on one task (grading) at a time (especially if my laptop isn't there, which it's usually not when I grade on the iPad).
5) Because the text boxes are small, it limits my final comments. I don't go on and on and on, which I'm often tempted to do when typing final comments on my laptop. I feel like I'm at the right balance for details in my final comments.
6) When I email back documents, I can include the comments in the text of the email as well as in the PDF, which gives students two ways to access the comments and their grades.
7) I haven't done this yet, because it seems overly complicated, but the different colors provide an opportunity to color-code types of comments (so I could use one color for completeness, one for mechanics, one for design, etc.). Right now, I just use yellow for local comments and red for my final comment.
That said, I've had some problems:
1) I really like handing back papers at the end of class so that I can also preface it with some metacommentary and framing. Instead, I either have to send them before class and make a comment at the start of class, or make my comments in class before emailing them back. So far I've emailed papers back the night before class or in the morning a few hours before class.
2) Grading the first assignment was a breeze (it was only two pages). However, the second assignment, at 11-24 pages a piece, was a bit harder to conceptualize as a whole. I did have the benefit of being able to scroll through the file and review my comments before making my end comment, but I'm used to doing this with paper. I think this is something that I'll get accustomed to, though.
3) iAnnotate has a funky problem of not saving the very last thing you do if you leave the app or open a new document. Luckily, I realized this early, though there was a case of needing to review a document to re-assign a grade because (of course) the grade is the very last thing I type. I found that if I simply tapped on another comment that it would save the last comment I typed.
Overall, grading on the iPad is enjoyable. I forgot the best benefit: not carrying around a stack of papers or my laptop to grade!
(Note: I wrote this last week on BlogPress, and then accidentally left the blog post to change a setting and lost the whole post. Oops. So this is a disclaimer that the older version of this post was probably better.)
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
First, to overview the mechanics of document production and delivery in class: students generally write in Pages (though some do write either all or parts of their document on their personal computers), email each other drafts as PDFs and use iAnnotate to give feedback, and submit final copies as PDFs to SugarSync. I then open their files in iAnnotate and grade them, and email them back to the students.
After grading 2 sets of 24 papers, I have to say, I'm quite pleased with using iAnnotate PDF to grade. Generally, I make 2-3 comments per page, using the highlight tool in yellow and making a comment attached to it. Then, after reading the document, I make a final comment in a red comment box on the first page with a grade. Here's a few images from a student who gave me permission to share a bit of her work:
This is from a students' Internet resource guide (and you can get a sense of some of the formatting students are able to do on the iPad as well). The highlighted text means that there is a comment if a user hovers over them. You can see a few of the comments I've given.
There are a lot of things I like about grading on iAnnotate:
1) The file system in the app helps me keep and organize all the graded work.
2) My comments are clearly linked to text, with no messy hand-written arrows (like a comment on a printed paper).
3) Unlike in MS Word, I can't get bogged down in focusing on mechanics, because there is no track changes editing. Instead, I'm forced to look for trends and make comments and explain mechanical issues. This prevents what I would call "teacher as editor" and instead helps me focus on being a teacher, rather than a proofreader or editor who is simply annoyed with errors.
4) The single-tasking of the iPad keeps me focused on one task (grading) at a time (especially if my laptop isn't there, which it's usually not when I grade on the iPad).
5) Because the text boxes are small, it limits my final comments. I don't go on and on and on, which I'm often tempted to do when typing final comments on my laptop. I feel like I'm at the right balance for details in my final comments.
6) When I email back documents, I can include the comments in the text of the email as well as in the PDF, which gives students two ways to access the comments and their grades.
7) I haven't done this yet, because it seems overly complicated, but the different colors provide an opportunity to color-code types of comments (so I could use one color for completeness, one for mechanics, one for design, etc.). Right now, I just use yellow for local comments and red for my final comment.
That said, I've had some problems:
1) I really like handing back papers at the end of class so that I can also preface it with some metacommentary and framing. Instead, I either have to send them before class and make a comment at the start of class, or make my comments in class before emailing them back. So far I've emailed papers back the night before class or in the morning a few hours before class.
2) Grading the first assignment was a breeze (it was only two pages). However, the second assignment, at 11-24 pages a piece, was a bit harder to conceptualize as a whole. I did have the benefit of being able to scroll through the file and review my comments before making my end comment, but I'm used to doing this with paper. I think this is something that I'll get accustomed to, though.
3) iAnnotate has a funky problem of not saving the very last thing you do if you leave the app or open a new document. Luckily, I realized this early, though there was a case of needing to review a document to re-assign a grade because (of course) the grade is the very last thing I type. I found that if I simply tapped on another comment that it would save the last comment I typed.
Overall, grading on the iPad is enjoyable. I forgot the best benefit: not carrying around a stack of papers or my laptop to grade!
(Note: I wrote this last week on BlogPress, and then accidentally left the blog post to change a setting and lost the whole post. Oops. So this is a disclaimer that the older version of this post was probably better.)
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
The single-tasking of the ipad 2 accessories keeps me focused on one task (grading) at a time (especially if my laptop isn't there, which it's usually not when I grade on the iPad)?