Back to the Flip!

It's been a while since my last flipped lesson - report writing, assessment time all played  apart but, also, I felt my class had reached a saturation point with them. Therefore, I decided  to take a break, do some more research and reconsider where to take the project.

I found that fewer and fewer of the children were watching the flip videos and I wondered why this was. I believe it was partly due to there being too many in too short a time but also because I wasn't using the lesson time as effectively as I could.

I read a book called Flip your Classroom by Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams and this really helped refocus my flipped teaching project - the flipped lesson itself has to be creative, stimulating or, at least, challenging. I think my videos became just another way to impart information than as a way to preserve time for an exciting learning experience in school.

Reading the book reignited my enthusiasm, but also made me more conscious of picking the lessons which I chose to flip more thoughtfully.

So, this week, I made a video all about the Water Cycle for our science lesson. All but 3 students watched it (it was exciting again!) and we spent our science lesson making dioramas about the cycle. The ones who missed the video had to go through the flipchart with me, while the others brainstormed everything they could remember from the video.

I would never have had the time for this in a traditional lesson. It was great - all on-task for the last 2 hours of the last day of the week, superb high-level conversation using scientific language, collaboration, creativity...we had a great time!

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.

Latest Flip Video and Video Editing Software Thoughts

Hi,
My latest flip video can be seen here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1A0zemeyLg

This one features me trying to teach the topic to my cat which was an idea suggested by some members of my class. I like the personal nature of these videos as I think they make them more engaging for the class. I have had a chat with colleagues about building up a library of videos to share across the year group/school. I think there is great merit in this, but I do think that the younger children really enjoy seeing and hearing their own teacher. A parent also echoed this in some feedback which I received. Not sure about the webcam but we will see...

I am also trialling a video editing suite from Corel which you can see here VideoStudio Pro 6 I had a go at making the same video in that program which had the advantage that I could save it as an MP4 file and upload directly to my class blog rather than YouTube or www.mediacore.com

However, I am finding it really tricky to use, as it is so powerful and I have absolutely no experience of video-editing whatsoever. But it looks like it can make much more professional and engaging movies so I will stick with it and see if I can get any better at using it.

The lesson based on the flip video is on Monday and I am actually being observed by my line manager in that lesson as part of my annual appraisal so it better go well!