Digital technologies

Tools for giving online feedback

Feedback is one of the most powerful interventions to strengthen learning. The goal of feedback is to give learners information about their learning process and to help them achieve the learning goals. However, giving effective feedback is complex. Feedback shall help learners learn and understand what you expect from them and encourage or make learners think and also act. In order to help EMVITET teachers to offer constructive feedback whenever necessary and possible, a blog is selected to be studied here as they introduced tools as well pedagogical tips on how to use technology effectively in providing feedback that support learning. Read the blog

Other tools which allow teachers to offer feedback

You can use quiz-tools to have all learners answer questions during or at the end of a meeting. Digital learning environments like BrightSpace or Moodle have such tools and enable you to quickly check the answers. Applications like Nearpod or LessonUp allow you to alternate between learning content and questioning.
You can use student response tools to make sure all learners answer the questions or write down the main ideas of a meeting. I [Wilfred Rubens] have been using Mentimeter for years. It supports different types of questions. Moreover, you can create a quiz with a time limit for the answers. Learners can answer anonymously, which has advantages (they don’t have to publicly admit they don’t know the answer) and disadvantages (sometimes you want to know which learner gave a certain answer). You can also easily copy-paste and reuse the ‘presentations’ (questions and quizzes).
You can use exit tickets via online forms like Google Forms or Typeform, Office 365’s online tool, and share them with learners via a QR code. The forms can easily be reused and the results are quickly processed (especially the answers to closed questions).
Instead of using paper post-it notes you can use tools like Padlet. It allows you to easily organise online post-its and to save the result for further analysis later on.
Tools like Classroomscreen or Prowise Presenter can replace the popsickle sticks. These – and other – applications include functionalities to upload a file with names and then randomly choose a name. This is a lot easier to create and manage than the popsicle sticks as it’s not really practical to carry them around with you.
Often you can give learners access to digital whiteboards or screens with their own devices through the software of those screens, which allows them to give presentations. In any case the software of digital whiteboards often includes several applications that allow you to actively involve learners in the meeting or class (including quiz-tools).

Obviously you can use most of these tools in combination with online instruction through, for example, instructional videos or virtual classroom tools. This website lists a few classroom tools, but you can find many more examples online. Again, technology enables you to effectively and efficiently facilitate learning activities. Read the blog