I often procrastinate in giving students feedback because I end up writing each student a whole novel on their paper. This makes the task of finishing feedback so daunting that I often blow it off completely. I am trying out a new method of giving students feedback– microblogging. I love the 140 character limit imposed by Twitter and its ilk because it forces me to say a lot in a little space. So I got a Jaiku account that I know nobody will ever read, made it private, and started writing tweets to each of my students. More than anything, they are notes to facilitate an in-class consultation between the student and I. They say just enough so students know what they did well and what parts of their piece they need to work on. Now before you go wondering– NO I don’t have the kids join Jaiku or send them links to my posts. I am thinking of just printing the tweets, cutting them up, and giving them to kids. They really are just a way that I can limit myself to writing a reasonable amount of feedback for each student in one sitting.
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