Snorkl: Multimodal Student Demonstrations with AI Guided Feedback
One of the most critical pedagogical developments that followed the introduction of iPads more than a decade ago was the emergence of multimodal apps that enabled teachers to see and hear students' thought processes as they worked on assignments. Apps like Explain Everything helped transform how students could make their thinking visible by combining voice recordings with digital whiteboard demonstrations. These tools provided teachers unprecedented windows into student comprehension and misconceptions.
Now, Snorkl is taking this pedagogical approach further by adding AI-powered feedback to the proven combination of voice and visual demonstrations. Like its predecessors, Snorkl enables students to record their voices while drawing or writing on a digital whiteboard. However, where teachers previously had to dedicate much time to reviewing individual student recordings, Snorkl's AI provides immediate, personalized feedback guided by teacher-defined criteria.
What is Snorkl?
Snorkl is a platform that provides instant, AI-driven feedback on students' verbal and visual explanations. Students record their thoughts and draw/write using a virtual whiteboard to demonstrate their thinking. Snorkl's AI then analyzes the student's work and provides personalized feedback, emphasizing areas for improvement. The platform is COPPA and FERPA compliant, so appropriate for K-12 classroom use.
Teachers can draw from Snorkl's database of activities for Math, Science, and other subject areas, or create their own. For each activity, teachers provide guidance to the AI about expected answers and evaluation criteria, ensuring the feedback aligns with their instructional goals. The system then aggregates data from student submissions to help teachers gauge overall class understanding and identify areas needing additional support.
Building on Strong Pedagogical Foundations
From iPad workshops a dozen years ago to AI presentations today, I have been enthusiastically preaching the pedagogical value of making student thinking visible. When students externalize their thought processes - whether explaining a math solution, analyzing a historical document, or describing a scientific concept - teachers gain crucial insights into both their understanding and misconceptions. This visibility enables teachers to provide more targeted instruction and support.
What makes Snorkl particularly appealing is how it combines this valuable approach with AI-guided feedback that assesses both correctness and clarity of explanation. In other words, the platform provides dual assessment: evaluating the accuracy of student work while also rating (on a 1-4 scale) how well students articulated their thinking. This feedback structure helps students develop both content mastery and communication skills.
Teacher-Guided AI Feedback
Importantly, Snorkel AI feedback isn’t random- it's a structured system where teachers guide the feedback students receive. Teachers can:
Define expected answers and evaluation criteria
Upload rubrics and standards alignments
Review and adjust AI feedback before students see it
Monitor student responses and progress over time
In addition, teachers can provide personalized feedback linked to different sections of the student recording.
Teacher oversight is crucial for ensuring feedback quality. Jeremie Rostan's case studies show how successful Snorkl implementation involves teachers initially verifying AI feedback accuracy and refining the context provided to the system.
For example, Mrs. Cucalón, a Grade 9 Biology teacher, initially double-checked the AI's feedback on a random sample of student responses about cellular respiration. This verification process led her to refine the context she provided to the AI system, improving the quality and relevance of feedback for subsequent student work.
This experience highlights a key principle: the more specific guidance teachers provide to the AI - through exemplar answers, rubrics, and clear evaluation criteria - the more effective and accurate the feedback becomes for students.
Supporting Iterative Learning
Like earlier tools for making thinking visible, Snorkl supports continuous improvement through iteration. But where students previously had to wait for teacher review, they now receive immediate AI feedback that enables them to revise and resubmit their work.
As such, Snorkl transforms the process of iterative learning by providing something previously impossible at scale: immediate, actionable feedback on multimodal student demonstrations of thinking. The immediacy of AIi feedback can fundamentally change how students approach revision. Rather than waiting for teacher review, they can immediately refine their explanations, correct misconceptions, and ultimately deepen their understanding.
Keeping a Clear Focus
While impressive, Snorkl is far from perfect. There are plenty of Math and Science activities for grades 3 and up, but there are currently no activities for history or social studies. Additionally, options for reading, language arts, and world languages are limited, with only a small selection of activities offered. In addition, there is no FAQ section for those seeking answers beyond the introductory video to provide additional guidance. Teachers may also quickly exhaust the 20 free activities, with no option to upgrade individually. The premium plan is exclusively available to schools and districts, leaving no direct pathway for teachers to access expanded resources.
That said, now that multimodal demonstrations have long made student thinking visible with carefully guided AI feedback, we're entering a new era of personalized, iterative learning.
The key is whether we can keep a focus on the core goal: understanding how students think so we can better support their learning. AI feedback doesn't replace teacher insight - it amplifies it by making rich, multimodal assessment practical at scale. If there is appropriate teacher oversight and student preparation, tools like Snorkl can significantly enhance our ability to peek inside student minds and help guide their development.
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