Comment History
Our vision for Annotate PRO (AP) is to go far beyond being a better mousetrap for creating feedback. We hope the speed and ease of creating and using libraries of comments is hugely compelling…and that the feature is free should help.
But our real crazy-scientist-in-the-basement work is focused on making feedback more impactful. Whatever process you use, ‘feedback’ in EDU is more of a one-way street than a continuous loop. Comments go back to students…and we never know if students applied those comments on their next assignment or even read them.
Comment Histories are a big part of our master plan to change this…
With a flip of a switch, literally, you can save every comment you make in Google Docs or Canvas SpeedGrader (including rubric comments). And Microsoft Word is even easier – just type your comments into the big friendly Free Form Feedback box and they’ll automatically become part of your Feed.
Why do this?
- Effortlessly use saved comments to create new reusable comments.
- Review a history of comments for each of your students (Canvas SpeedGrader and Microsoft Word only, for now).
In a conference with a student? Quickly pull up a visual representation of previous feedback AND all of the text you’ve created. Across multiple assignments…even across courses. With links to jump you straight to the SpeedGrader assignment if you are a Canvas user.
Even better, with our toolbar turned on, you’ll see the total number of comments for the current student in Canvas SpeedGrader, as you comment on new work. Click to pop the current student’s personal history and heat map of feedback then quickly filter to see previous comments focused on different skill areas (aka ‘Groups’ in AP).
In the screenshot of Canvas SpeedGrader above we have clicked on the student’s avatar/name area (#1) to pop a window summarizing their feedback to date. Feedback by Group is represented in the left pie chart. You can click on pieces of the pie to drill down; the pie chart on the right shows distribution by individual comment for the chosen Group. Below the pie charts (not shown) are the specific text comments. And they update based on your choice of Group.