Flipping the Classroom

What is Flipping the Classroom?

Have you heard of the Khan Academy? Here you have a guy who was helping his cousins with their school work by recording short demonstrations on how to do specific math equations. He then uploaded them to YouTube and with a few years his videos have had over 60 million views. While the Khan Academy has gotten mixed reviews (especially by those who think he is trying to replace teachers - we get a little defensive at that notion), it has sparked a major discussion about what does education in the 21st century look like.

Even before the Khan Academy got big (Bill Gates just gave him $8 million), there were a number of teachers experiment with this very idea. Record your direction instruction as a vodcast, screencast, or podcast and assign it as homework. Then use your limited class time for questions, discussion, and problem solving. That way the students can interact more AND the teacher can provide more targeted help to students who need it.

This idea is called flipping the classroom. Here is a short video about two AP Chemistry teachers who really started this craze.

What are people saying about it?

Here are some articles and blogs about flipping the classroom.

• The Backwards Class - From the THE Journal
• Remixing Chemistry Class - From ISTE's Leading and Learning
• The Inverted Classroom - To be fair, we have to critically consider the negatives, a math teacher writes of rejection of this idea. He calls himself Math Curmudgeon.
• The Flipped Classroom Network - A Ning community where teachers interested in vodcasting and flipping their classrooms can talk.

Uses of Flipped Classroom ideas:

You don't have to completely change everything you do to use these ideas. Here are some potential uses:

• Walk students through a specific task in a computer application (tutorials).
• Create a series of short videos to complement skills being taught in class (essay writing, note taking, etc.).
• Short reviews of items that may show up on exams or home work.
• Pod or vodcasts of a lecture, with discussion time in class or as part of an online forum.

You get the idea. One of the great parts of this that those items you create can be re-used from year-to-year. So yes there is an initial investment, but it can pay off in later years.

Tools

• Screenr / Screencastomatic - Two free, online screencasting tools. They allow you to record your screen and narrate what you do. Both can be embedded into a Google Site.
• Present.me / Knovio - Two free, online tools that record a PowerPoint presentation, your voice, and you (if you have a video camera).
• iPadio / Cinch - Two free, online and mobile audio recording tools. Use your computer or phone to record a podcast and automatically publish it online. Cinch has a cool widget that can be embedded in Google Sites.
• Tildee - Create job aids with screen shots, images, and videos.
• A longer list of tools can be found here.

Embedding Non-Google objects

• Two versions below:
  1. HTML version.
  2. Using Code Warpper. I simply don't want to mess with HTML code version. Like Reuben!

#1 HTML

#2 Using Code Wrapper