Snorkl

As a former high school English teacher, I always felt pressured to provide useful, personalized feedback quickly.  Digital tools like the Comment feature in Google Docs became popular just as I was leaving the classroom, and certainly shifted the paradigm when it came to giving "just in time" quality feedback.

Now, thanks to artificial intelligence, we are on the precipice of the next generation of digital feedback that can transform teaching.   For some time now, genAI chatbots like ChatGPT already offer an augmented opportunity to comment on student writing -- if you are willing to engineer a prompt for what you are looking for, then copying and pasting each student essay into the tool, then copying and pasting any AI feedback you wished to share back with a student.  (You can even include your rubric in your prompt, so you can get your feedback with a suggested assessment score.)  This is free and helpful, albeit time consuming and clunky.

But now we enter what I am calling the "refurbished" phase of AI.  In these newest AI tools, the programming is more hidden under the hood, while the interface is much more user friendly and less dependent on prompt engineering.  And that leads us to the tool for today's entry: Snorkl.  While its strength in providing feedback for solving math problems seems obvious, its potential for analyzing reflection and metacognition in multiple content areas is also apparent.

How does it work?

You can sign up free with a Google or Microsoft account.  Snorkl will ask you whether you are a teacher or a student -- I'm not sure how easy it is to change this if you answer wrongly, or are wanting to see what the other side is like before trying to return to your standard role, so choose wisely.

Your home page is intuitively organized with several options.  A "Getting Started" box provides light tutorials for how Snorkl works. Some videos to watch are in "Resources."  You can explore premium plans; although a free account gives you unlimited classes and co-teachers, you have "limited" activities -- an actual number is not specified.  Last but not least, you can create a class where you can then make activities for students (a share link for your activities makes it easy to get students jumping in).

Your Home tab.  Note the tabs across the top for Classes and Library (see below).

What does Snorkl feel like for a student? In the pre-made "Try as a student!" section, several prompts are given so you can experience Snorkl for yourself, and reveal its potential for a wide range of content.  For example, there's one for "Trig Ratios," and another that asks you to "Identify the author's feelings about New Orleans in this 4th grade ELA assignment."  I was intrigued by the "Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwich" activity -- a classic writing prompt I used years ago with students to show the importance of details when describing "how to" instructions -- so that's the one I chose.

When I opened it up, I first encountered the "Response Whiteboard."  

The activity's instructions are in the upper right, which can also be read aloud to the student.

As you can see from the toolbar at the top of the whiteboard, there are several buttons that allow you to insert text, pictures, and formulas for your response; while you can use the mouse/trackpad to draw, it's probably not as natural as using your finger or stylus on a touchscreen device. (This is the same whiteboard interface the teacher uses when creating the activity prompt for students.)  However, "Record Screen + Voice" is where the real magic of Snorkl resides.  While you can write or draw to your heart's delight before hitting this button, you really can't submit your response unless you make a recording.  That's because Snorkl takes what you say and converts it to text for the next step of the process. Of course, like any screencast, you could draw and type as you talk.  (The first time you do this, you'll be prompted to give permission for Snorkl to use your microphone.)

Once you submit your response, Snorkl uses AI to, in effect, analyze your thinking out loud and tell you how well you did.  The first time I responded I didn't doodle and simply talked through how to make a PB&J.  After several seconds, I got back this screen:

The comments on the right are timestamped; click on the time and you can go straight to that part of the recording.

I have to admit, this had me pretty slack-jawed.  You can play back your recording, with a running transcript in the form of captions.  Snorkl provided some simple overall feedback ("Correct," "3/4 Strong") followed by impressively detailed commentary.  Even the tone seemed appropriate -- Snorkl celebrated my strengths ("Great job on giving a detailed explanation...I love how you even included the part about opening the bread bag") while also providing me ways to improve ("Have you tried using the same knife for both the peanut butter and jelly?").

If you like, you can do another response, with either a clean whiteboard or pick up where you left off.  These additional responses become a history that you can revisit and review, to see your growth over time.

The Portfolio tab shows how Snorkl can be a place for artifacts for learning; for example, imagine a student pulling out a response during a student-led conference with their parents. 

Of course, teachers can review and play the videos of these submitted responses.  Once several responses have been submitted, Snorkl's website suggests that a teacher will be able to see some class-level insights, such as "top exemplars" and "common misconceptions," but it is also possible such insights are only fully available as a premium feature. 

Snorkl calls itself "a versatile tool for all subjects, used from elementary through college."  As an additional nod beyond the "try as a student" examples indicated above, the platform also provides some pre-made activities in several content areas and grade levels in its Library.

The library bank already covers many grade levels, with more "coming soon."

Finally, for a video on getting started with Snorkl, watch the following (3:24):

How could you use it?

Students could be assigned a Snorkl task:

• as a more interactive type of "flipped learning" homework
• during class as part of a blended learning station rotation
• at the end of class as a formative assessment exit slip to determine if they understood today's content (and give the teacher data on what misconceptions to address for tomorrow's class)

Downsides?

Snorkl offers some powerful features for free, so it is hard to find faults with the tool itself beyond just how many activities you can create at no cost, or the possible limitation of the drawing features if you don't have a touchscreen device.  From a teacher's perspective, it truly can become a powerful "instructional aide" (not teacher replacer!) in your classroom.  A more likely negative is about the potential for a teacher to overuse the tool, or use it without also checking student work in person.  As always with edtech -- especially with AI -- practice moderation, oversight (it's not always right), and balance.

Have you used Snorkl, or a similar AI tool?  Share your stories in the Comments below!