I recently returned from the 2015 annual ISTE Conference in Philadelphia. It’s always exciting to learn about the new tools and features that are available to educators and students. One of my favorite tools on the market is Kaizena, a tool that you can use to give audio feedback to students in addition to coordinating your feedback with rubrics and learning tools. You can learn more about the advanced features of Kaizena, here. While at ISTE, I learned that Kaizena launched a new tool that will allow teachers to add voice comments far more easily and much faster! Kaizena has recently introduced their “Kaizena Mini” add-on that will allow you to leave voice comments and written notes on students’ documents within Google Docs itself. This way, you do not have to launch a third party tool to apply these features.

How to leave voice comments in Google Docs

Install Kaizena Mini Add-On

While inside of the document you would like to annotate with voice comments, simply go to Menu → Add-ons → Get Add-ons. When the Add-On window launches, simply search for “Kaizena.” Next, click on the “+ FREE” next to the Kaizena Mini Add-on, and follow the instructions to install the software on your account.

Open Kaizena Mini

With the software installed, simply go to Add-ons → Kaizena Mini → Open Kaizena Mini. This will launch the mini recorder on the right hand side. You should select that you are “giving feedback” and then choose the person receiving feedback from the menu (or add someone not listed), and then click continue. To leave feedback, highlight a portion of the text and click “+ New Feedback.” You can then select a voice comment, text comment, or even insert a link.

Leave voice omments

Once you have finished adding voice comments, the user will see the highlights on the document and be directed to open Kaizena Mini in order to hear the corresponding feedback. This is a great way to leave not just text but also audio feedback on student work while never having to leave Google Docs! Voice comments are a great way to provide in-depth and individualized feedback and, using the Kaizena mini recorder, you can do so faster than ever.

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