Flipclass reflection

As my first year of flipclass reaches its halfway mark, I want to reflect on the ways it has changed my teaching for the better. Developing the delivery method was really important.  I chose a wordpress blog from my school to post content, and I'm glad I worked on that for about six months before I really started flipping.  Also during this time I learned a useful lesson, the quicktime format I was using for the videos wasn't working for all viewers thus the youtube videos and account.  As with anything you try in the classroom, I think that you really need to think it out, plan for it, and give it time to work.  The following are my top three reasons to continue flipping and why I think it has been so successful so far:

1. For the lessons that were flipped, students came to class empowered and excited for what lay ahead.  I felt like they had had a chance to think about what they were going to be doing and therefore were more intellectually active in creating a positive outcome.
2. Video taping myself and narrating screencasts were nerve wracking at the beginning, but forced me to hone my delivery and focus my verbage.  I am now much more aware of consistently delivering key vocabulary on a daily basis.
3. Feedback has been overwhelmingly positive from students and parents/ guardians.  The number one comment is that videos can be watched as many times as necessary or paused when needed.

This was my second video for a flipped sequence on finding the density of unknown liquids, and I think it was great because it captured a very visual experience and summarized.   I had a colleague shoot it with my droid smart phone and I posted it to youtube straight from the device.  Now I mostly use my flip HD video camera and post  to youtube.  Uploading can take a while because of bandwidth issues.

Powerpoints also got a facelift with screencast-o-matic which I "went pro" on so I don't have the watermark and have other editing capabilities which I'm still playing with.  This is the only program I've used, so I can't compare it to any others, but I'm really happy with how it works and it creates some great content.

Going forward, I am really glad that I have been building up a library of videos and screencasts.  While I will continue to create content as I go, it will be great to have previous examples to choose from.  I am going to challenge myself to work with something like movie maker to create movies with different scenes.

For those of you just starting out I can say that flipping lessons is very worthwhile.  Your students will be very appreciative, and you will see improved retention of material.