This semester I elected to test Instructure’s (pilot? beta?) learning management system with my own online course, DGM 2740: Web Design, the third course in the Digital Media web development track at UVU. Instructure is showing us how it’s done with strong AJAX enhancements for more streamlined user processes. Instructure is also surprisingly receptive to my feedback, which comes frequently and unsolicited as you who know me might imagine.
As our semester crawled into the second week and I began to enter scores and feedback for the students’ first assignment–a blog post–I noticed a couple unusual features:
- When a student submits an URL for an assignment, Instructure grabs a screenshot of the rendered URL in addition to providing a hyperlink. This ensures that students actually have completed what they claim to have completed at the time of submission.
- Students and instructors can each reply to an assignment’s score and feedback seamlessly within the system. For instance, after I submitted scores for this first assignment, one student explained in the assignment feedback why I failed to notice that she had in fact completed the assignment. I confirmed this, changed her score, and replied back, much like I would in private e-mail, but without any of the hassle of opening a message, choosing an addressee, etc.
Not only is this feedback discussion feature both seamless and the default, I can also use a built-in rubric, attach individual files (though Instructure has an even better way to upload assignment feedback en masse) and even record audio feedback inline (uses a Flash-based plug-in [still buggy for me on Win 7 in FF3]).
This is a great way to negotiate feedback and scoring with students. This also provides an opportunity for learners to engage in the assessment process. And since the features on this particular tool are easy and even intuitive to use, there is no excuse for accurate, timely corrective feedback that is understood by both instructor and learner.
