Thursday, July 14, 2016

Let's Recap.com - Navigating the Teacher Dashboard


UPDATE:
February 2017
Let's Recap has recently added some updates to their teacher dashboard, and as a result, I've created a video that demonstrates some of the updates.  A few updates that I'm especially excited about are the ability to set a specific deadline for an assignment and the ability to choose which students' videos to include in the daily review reel.  I hope you find this video informative and helpful.  I continue to love using @RecapThat in my classroom, and my students love it, too.

Summer 2016:
I've been busy this summer doing a few workshops focusing on the importance of feedback in the classroom, and in each of the workshops, I've highlighted one of my favorite classroom tools for feedback Let's Recap http://letsrecap.com/  @RecapThat .  I've found teachers are eager to learn how to use this tool, but sometimes navigating a teacher dashboard can be intimidating at first glance.

Where do I start?  How do I input students?  Where do I access the data I need?  These are all common questions when looking at a new tool.  Many of the online tools designed for classroom integration include a teacher dashboard that serves as a control room for using the tool, and http://letsrecap.com/ is no different.  To help teachers get started using this tool, I've created a short video tutorial on navigating the teacher dashboard.  I've found that with a little exploration, using http://letsrecap.com/ teacher dashboard is fairly intuitive.

Let's Recap http://letsrecap.com/ allows students to create a short (15 sec.-2 min.) video response to a question or series of questions.  It's simple to differentiate and personalize the question and response cycle, and in my experience, it's been a successful tool for exit tickets, reflections, and summaries.  Actually hearing and seeing my students respond via video adds a layer of understanding for me that I don't often feel when reading a brief written response.  I like to hear their tone of voice and pauses, see their expressions, and I often get a more personalized connection from a brief video response than I would in a written response.  More importantly, I see students re-recording themselves and re-thinking their video responses; I believe that the self-evaluation process that comes naturally when video is introduced can be a powerful influence in improving communication skills.  I want to be clear; I don't believe video responses replace written responses.  However, I do feel that this tool in particular makes it easy to give and gather effective feedback quickly and efficiently, and I've found it to be highly successful at taking the pulse of a classroom's overall understanding.

Have you tried video to give or gather feedback in the classroom?  What has your experience been?


2 comments:

  1. I am very interested in using this with my students. Thanks for sharing.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I am very interested in using this with my students. Thanks for sharing.

    ReplyDelete