How to Flip Your Classroom Without Screencasting Your Face: Modification & Mash Up
NOTE: This post is part of a series, How to Flip Your Classroom Without Screencasting Your Face. Please see the explanation here.
Although I've shared how to create flipped lessons with video and how to extend our lessons beyond videos using infographics, I use more than these two mediums to teach content.
While some of the following tools allow you to modify and enhance your current video and infographic flipped lessons, the rest will utilize app smashing to create other types of flipped lessons that go beyond videos and infographics.
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Video Modification
1. Edpuzzle
Edpuzzle is probably one of the most popular tools in a flipper's toolbox, allowing teachers to easily take online video content and edit and modify it, adding multiple choice and short answer questions (which can also include images, links, and formulas), textual and audio notes, and voice-over.
Edpuzzle remains popular because it's completely free for teachers to use, offering teachers unlimited video modifications. Furthermore, Edpuzzle's sweet Chrome extension allows you to easily edit videos straight from YouTube.
In my flipped lesson using Edpuzzle, I taught the concepts of perceived and planned obsolescence. Traditionally, I had shown this video, "The Story of Stuff," in class and asked my students to take notes. However, by turning this into an in-class flipped lesson, my students were more focused, paid attention to the video, were able to pause, rewind and rewatch the video, and were formatively assessed on their understanding of the two terms. As the students finished the lesson, I was provided with real-time feedback, which I then used, in the moment, to reteach perceived obsolescense, the term they struggled with.
(By the way, if you haven't watched any of Annie Leonard's "Story of Stuff" videos, they're freaking awesome).
2. Playposit
While I haven't used Playposit to create a flipped lesson yet, I'm intrigued by what it offers. While it unfortunately limits one's free storage, therefore, limiting how many flipped lessons you can make, the variety of content that can be added to the videos is awesome.
Like Edpuzzle, Playposit allows users to transform an online video into an interactive lesson; therefore, you can take your own flipped video lessons and add content that allows you to assess your students' understanding. What's great about Playposit, however, is that it offers all the features of Edpuzzle, plus fill-in-the-blank and multiple select questions, polls, discussions, and website embedding. In addition, not only can questions include links, images, and formulas, but it allows for audio as well.
Like Edpuzzle, Playposit offers a Chrome extension, which allows you to pull a video from anywhere, not just YouTube. In addition, the Chrome extension provides tools to easily create and edit screencasts before adding them to Playposit for modification.
Image Modification
3. ThingLink
ThingLink is one of my all-time favorite edtech tools and is an awesome tool to use for flipped lessons.
ThingLink allows users to take an image or video and add tags or hot spots to the image, which when hovered over reveals new content. Tags can be text, images, videos, websites, audio, or almost anything with an embed code, which helps transform an image into an interactive lesson. In addition, the paid version (which is only $35 a year), allows users to create interactive 360 images, provides users with advanced tagging features, the ability to upload videos, and student accounts.
When introducing Romeo and Juliet, I spend some time educating my students about Shakespeare's life, the time period, and the Globe Theater, where Romeo and Juliet was originally performed, because this background knowledge helps them understand certain aspects of the 400-year-old play. I've done this introduction several ways, but last year, because I was going to be absent, I decided to flip the lesson.
I took an image of the Globe Theater in London and added various tags - both an interactive 360 tour and a video tour of the theater, a link to an article about 16th century British theater, text and images about the creation of the Globe, and a short documentary about Shakespeare himself.
Because I was absent, students completed the lesson at their own pace in class, while they completed a KWL chart. The following day, I was able to use the students' KWL chart to discuss what they had learned and then use that knowledge during our discussion of the play.
I have also used ThingLink to add tags to infographics I have created. Before we jump into analyzing literature, I teach my students about reading signposts. I had created this infographic that I included in my students' packets, but instead I was able to post this on my LMS, and students could use it to review the learn about the signposts.
Webpage Modification
4. Insert Learning
InsertLearning, a Chrome-based tool, is one of the most unique edtech tools available and makes an excellent tool for flipped lessons.
InsertLearning allows users to take any website or Google Doc and embed interactive content right on the page. This content can be multiple choice and open-ended questions, discussions, sticky-notes, highlights, definitions, links, online videos, and images as well as anything with an embed code (Microsoft or Google Forms, Sway, ThingLink, Edpuzzle, Playposit, Flip Grid, NearPod, etc.). Furthermore, InsertLearning offers student the ability to highlight and post sticky notes as well.
While InsertLearning only provides five lessons for free, it's a cool tool that's worthy of using in the flipped classroom because it's so versatile.
In addition, I love it because it allows me to use several mediums to teach my students and different formative assessment tools all on one page.
Page/Presentation Creation Tools
5. Adobe Spark Page
Adobe Spark offers a trio of free creation tools with Adobe Spark Page serving as their webpage/presentation tool.
While Adobe Spark Page is limited in its offerings of designs, fonts, and addable content (text, images, YouTube videos, and links), it's incredibly easy to use, making it a great choice for flippers new to creating pages.
Not only can Adobe Spark Page be used to house all one's flipped lessons, it can be used to create flipped lessons.
In the beginning of the school year, I often spend a lot of time reviewing plot structure before we begin analyzing literature. What's frustrating is as incoming high schoolers, my students always have a varying degree of knowledge of the plot pyramid. Some struggle with exposition, some with climax, and some don't remember any of the structure at all.
By flipping this lesson, I not only saved precious class time by not having to teach all aspects of plot structure to everyone but each student was able to review or learn what aspects of plot structure they needed to.
6. Sway
Like Adobe Spark Page, Microsoft's Sway offers users a free tool to create webpages/presentations. However, in comparison to Adobe's product, Microsoft's offers a lot more bang for your (free) buck.
With hundreds of designs (and even a cool design randomizer called Remix), each user's Sway can look different, allowing teachers to create a unique experience each lesson. Furthermore, users can select from a vertical, horizontal or slide layout.
In addition, while Sway allows users to add images, text, links, and YouTube and Vimeo videos, it also offers users to record or upload audio and embed forms, documents, and audio from Microsoft Forms, SharePoint and SoundCloud.
In my flipped lesson using Sway, I taught my students about the media's image of the "ideal" male and female. Traditionally, I had taught this lesson with a PowerPoint, and when I first flipped this lesson through a traditional screencast, it was 14 minutes long. Recreating this lesson in Sway allowed me to continue teaching the necessary content while allowing my lesson to be interactive.
7. Padlet
An oldie but goody, Padlet offers users the ability to create a virtual pin board. However, due to how many different types of content one can add to a Padlet, this tool is a great option for flippers.
Users can add text, photos, documents, links, .GIFS, videos (online and uploaded), voice recordings, drawings, and maps/locations. In addition, users can organize their content in four different layouts and can customize fonts and backgrounds. Users can also offer interactive features like ratings, liking, grading, and comments as well.
In my class, I teach basic presentation skills. However, I like to provide opportunities for my students to personalize their learning by choosing other aspects of public speaking they'd like to learn about. Padlet allows me to curate a bunch of content in one spot and during class time I provide my students time to learn about what matters most to them. For example, some of my students struggle with organizing their speeches, while others need help creating effective visuals. Using Padlet allows me to create several flipped video and infographic lessons as well as gather other resources and place them all in one spot.
While Padlet has recently changed their pricing schedule only offering three free padlets, users can reuse these Padlets as many times as they need to.
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Modification & Mash Up Tools Comparison Chart
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Do you have examples of lessons you have flipped using any of these tools? Please feel free to add them below.
Furthermore, do you have other tools that you use to flip your teaching? Please comment below and I will add them to this ever-growing list.
