Providing feedback via audio can be a great way to create teacher presence. Students report that they really “hear what you’re saying” when they can hear your voice.
Audio Comments in a PDF
Example: How a Research Article is Structured
In her research methods course, Rhonda Black uses audio comments to point out how a research article is structured. Double click on a speaker icon to hear that comment. (You’ll need Adobe Acrobat Reader).
To insert audio comments in a PDF using Acrobat, you’ll need a copy of Adobe Acrobat Pro. However, your students only need the free Adobe Reader to hear them.
Example: Feedback to Student Author
In this example, 3 audio feedback comments have been added to a PDF to provide the student with feedback on how to improve their writing.
Audio comments to student author
How-to in Adobe Acrobat pro
This video shows how easy it is to record audio comments in a PDF.
Audio Comments in Google Docs
The Chrome browser has an extension called Talk & Comment that allows you to record audio comments.
Example: Audio Comments on a Paper
In the Google Doc below audio comments were recorded using the Talk and Comment extension, then pasted into a Google doc comment. It’s recommended if you decide to use this tool, to have students also add Talk and Comment to Chrome. The audio comments can then be played directly in the Google doc comment itself.
NOTE: Scroll to see the comments on the right of the doc itself.
How-to in Google docs