How I Flip My Classroom

From my experience of flipping my classroom there are so many different ways to do it.  I know teachers that use their iPads or screencast their desktop but I really think it is completely teacher preference.  What are you comfortable doing and using?  For me, I found that the most important thing is to get my videos in a format that is accessible on a mobile device and have the students accountable for the assignment.  Here is how I have been flipping my classroom this year.


Step 1:  Creating the Note sheet.

Based on what I have seen from my students and a few conferences I have attended, supplying guided notes to the students make it easier for them to pay attention to the videos and holds them accountable for paying attention.


Step 2:  Recording the Video with Educations

I have found Educreations on the iPad to be my "goto" video creation app.  It's free and the ease of using the app made it usable after five minutes of reading the tutorial.  There are two main problems with Educreations that can be fixed on the teachers part.  The first is that you can not import a Word document into the videos.  However you can import picture files from a Dropbox account.  So what I do is take screen shots of the note sheets (one for each page) and save those picture files to Dropbox to use with Educreations.  The second problem is that students can not view Educreation videos on their mobile devices.  I solved this problem in the next step.


Step 3:  Convert the Video to a YouTube Video

Because Educreation videos are not viewable on mobile devices I use Screencast-O-Matic to capture the videos to post on YouTube.  I know it seems like extra work to do this but I think it is important that my students can view the videos on their phone.  I use an iMac or MacBook Pro to accomplished this because one of the options in the audio settings (SoundFlower) allows for Screencast-O-Matic to grab only the audio from the videos and not the audio from the microphone on my computer.  After the video has been captured, uploading to my YouTube channel is very easy.


Step 4:  Creating the Google Form

I like the students to access my videos from a Google Form.  The benefit of using a Google Form is that you can embed the video and questions for the students to answer after watching the video.  Here is the blog post on how I created my Google Forms for my flipped classroom.


Step 5:  QR Codes for Access

The last step is to create a QR code using goo.gl to the Google Form for the video.  I then place the QR code on the guided notes for the students so they do not have to type in any URLs.  Then print however many guided notes you need.



And that's it.  I know it sounds like a lot for just one lesson but it gets easier the more you flip your class.  There are also so many different ways to create video files.  I have tried using Screencast-O-Matic and Doceri to create a video file, Knomia and other apps but I have found Educreations to be the most user friendly for myself.

I believe the key is to find what works for you and stick with it.  There is no "correct" way to flip your classroom.