Blogging...Glogging

Having bit of a rest over the half term holiday but I have been trying out Glogster as a medium for delivering flipped lessons and as a tool for the class to do their own projects. I think they could use it as a resource for delivering their own lessons too.

Loved making it - it helps to have lots of images and videos etc already saved ready to upload onto your Glog though. I like the idea of uploading a flipped video alongside some key facts and maybe some activities for the class to try before the lesson.

http://robvde.edu.glogster.com/seed-dispersal

So I'm making a flipped video next then going to try uploading it to a Glog with extra information...With a bit of luck, if it all works I may never actually have to get up and go to school again!

The Flipped Classroom... what it means to us

Check out http://blog.speekee.com/what-flipping-the-classroom-means-to-me/ for some other views of teachers who are flipping their classrooms.

Thanks to Jim at speekee!

Class Make First Attempts at Flip Video

I have had the first flip video submitted by a child in my class!

She decided that she should do one about mean, mode and median averages. She is a very confident mathematician so this was a topic she felt happy with.

We had a few problems as she used Moviemaker and I couldn't play it at fist as she did not attach the pictures and music which went with it in the memory stick. However, she then took it away and converted it into an Mpeg 4 and it worked brilliantly.

I think the video is great but it was also amazing how she had exactly the same thoughts as me - takes  along time to do the first one (took her 4 hours); steep learning curve about ICT but also that it is great fun! I really hope that it inspires other children to make one.

See the video below:

In other news, our Year 5 team of teachers have been making a video all about the story of Lord Lucan which is the basis for our Literacy topic on persuasive writing. Because of the confidence and knowledge I now have with video, I am making it using chromakey green screen techniques. Still working on it but I think it's going to be fantastic and the children will love it! It was certainly fun to make.

Flipped Teaching Evolving...

I think I'm beginning to really get the hang of video-making. Not saying the videos are any good but they are taking less time to film and edit.

I have become more self-critical of the videos and redo them if they don't look good to me. I have set my class one flip video to watch this week about our upcoming lesson on persuasive newspaper articles. I find that literacy requires longer videos but I am mindful of my children's feedback that they should be short and snappy!

I try to limit them to 12-13 minutes. I now realise how long I must drone on for in lessons!

I certainly feel that the process has led me to making other activities more creative and engaging. I dislike doing 'normal' lessons now, but I think there is still a place for the more traditional one alongside the videos.

I have been really pleased that a couple of my children have taken up the challenge to produce their own flipped videos. One has made a video about finding averages which is a topic coming up next week. Another child is making one about how to make a recorder from a drinking straw as part of our work on pitch in our sound topic in science.

There are technical problems with this - they are using software which doesn't run on the school equipment etc so I think I may do a lesson on producing videos so they can all have a go.

Latest Flip Video...after brutal feedback!

My class have been keen (a little too keen!) to say what they think of the flip videos.

Overall, they say that they like them, find them useful but they are too long. Also, one pupil said that I talked too much. Fair point.

So..my latest one on reflecting over a mirror line is 100-second one with no narration. I used Activepresenter to make a series of slides using screenshot capture I then added text bubbles to each slide to explain what was happening. So far, this one has gone down the best! It was hard to find any song to go with it featuring the word symmetry!

However, I actually taught my lesson on calculator word problems today following the video I made earlier in the week. I felt it went very well with over half of my class working on problems at a higher level than I would normally expect. Some also went on to design their own calculator word problem maths 'test'.

The Literacy one didn't work so well. I find it harder as it is a more open subject whereas maths has  a specific method. I think literacy flip videos might work with grammar and spelling.

Homework, Security Concerns and More

One of the side-effects of flipping the class has been to make all of us much more IT-literate. Suddenly, my class are having to read our blog, follow links to the video storage site and post comments back about the videos.

This has led to us thinking about internet safety and what they can and cannot post. I am definitely staying away from YouTube at the moment - there's nothing wrong with it but I like having a secure place where just my class can visit and where I know only work which I have placed there can be found.

My class have also been using the sharing function of Google Docs to show what they have done at home after watching these videos. I don't set work based on the videos as flipped teaching isn't about that but I have found that a lot of the children are keen to follow up the videos with some work of their own.

I really like the sharing nature of Google Docs and the class love the way they can collaborate with others in the class so easily. 

I was having lots of problems with Ezvid as we couldn't upload the videos to YouTube (this is the only export function of Ezvid) so we have now switched to Activepresenter. I really like this even though it is a bit more complex to use. It has a great function of being able to make slideshow captures and add annotations so you can make a video showing how to use a certain piece of software. It's really impressive.

Tomorrow is my first literacy flipped lesson so I am looking forward to seeing how that goes. I began thinking about how I am going to get the class involve din making videos themselves: at the moment I am thinking of putting them into groups of 4 and giving them one topic which we are covering in the near future.

I want the 4 children to consist of one subject specialist (for researching the topic), an ICT specialist (making the video), a writing specialist (script) and a creative specialist (artwork, titles etc). They then collaborate at home for their homework to make a video to show the class in that lesson.

Sounds exciting...

Freshly-made Flip Videos

Just made a new maths and a new literacy flip video.

You can see these at http://5est-chris.mediacore.tv/

I like this site as my class can see the videos without visiting YouTube. I have set out some of my flipped videos in a  public folder so anyone can see them but there is also a password-protected section where just my class have access. I think it works well.

My maths one is about using a calculator and I know it is too long. However, I did learn how to insert 3rd party video clips into my own video and also how to trim these clips. I'm also experimenting with adding text.

The literacy one on persuasive writing is yet to be posted by Mediacore (they moderate all the videos - great thing!) but it is much simpler and to the point.

Really looking forward to next week's teaching and it's been a long time since I could genuinely say that!

One Thing Leads to Another...

Since starting this experiment on flipped teaching, I have also come across lots of other ideas for the creative classroom and different approaches to topics. I have lost track of all the conversations with colleagues about 'flipping' that have included the phrase, "Oooo, you could.." or "I wonder if you could...."

A lot of these ideas haven't been new and I am sure a lot of teachers are using them all the time but I seem to have placed them on the backburner. Flipped lessons make you think about using the lesson time more creatively and imaginatively - you have so much more of it!

Therefore this post is not about flipped teaching but about some of the ideas which I am now using/considering in my lessons.

I also like going to www.sparkyteaching.com as it has a fresh approach to the classroom and some wonderful resources. They always make me consider how I teach and questions that I ask. If you like their stuff, I'd also recommend http://www.independentthinking.co.uk/ which is the home of Ian Gilbert and others. To this day, he delivered the best INSET I have ever attended.

Anyway, following links from Sparky, I found Animoto which has to be the easiest animation slideshow program ever and it makes wonderful quick shows to share with your class. I tried the free trial first but you can only make 30 second videos with that and, after one go, I really wanted to do more so I went for the Plus account. You can see my first result below. One of our teachers came up with the great idea of teaching our Persuasive Texts unit around the case of Lord Lucan so I made a slideshow to introduce it.

Flipped learning/teaching has made me worry about coming up with exciting activities in lesson - I find it hard to do this consistently so I asked Jon Bergmann who is a leading figure in the 'Flipped' movement (I hope he doesn't mind being described as such!) via his website here. He reassured me that sometimes you can just focus on activities and stretch the learning - it doesn't always have to be designing a video game, making a film etc etc. Phew!

Anyway, I have some more links to explore and I am about to make another flip video for next week. If you do read this, please say hello or add any flipped stories of your own. Thanks.