Flipgrid in the Classroom

Using Flipgrid

I previously posted an introduction to Flipgrid, but wanted to follow up on how we've been using in classes this week and also a video tutorial. 

For an overview of how to get started with Flipgrid here's a video I created on the basics of using it. 

Second grade students working 
on chrome books to record
Flipgrid videos

This past week, I worked with a great second teacher to introduce students to Flipgrid. We began with a basic introductory video and it was a huge hit. Students were great. Respectful to others who were recording around them, giving great details about the question they were asked. It was so fun to see. Here's students watching the sample video we made and recording their own. 

8th Grade students working
on chrome books to record
Flipgrid videos

Ideas for using it in the classroom

Write a  math problem and have students explain/show how they would solve it.
Write an incorrectly solved math problem & have students explain what's wrong with your math & how to fix it. Make a video recommending a book they read. Have students give a summary of something you read in class. Have students compare and contrast two objects or characters (related to science, social studies, or reading characters). 

Book Creator

My daughter is a creative genius. She has more ideas swimming around in her head than the average person, and she is constantly looking for ways to get them recorded. There are notebooks, journals, binders, and random scraps of paper littering my house with her stories recorded. This is great, but it's also a mess. I introduced her to Book Creator so we could start recording some of her work digitally. Now she can write to her heart's content, and I don't have to to feel guilty getting rid of her excessive manuscripts.

Book Creator

Book creator a is a free tool for educators to use on Chrome. I think there is an iPad app as well.  Students create digital books by writing a story using text boxes. They then add images. They can import from the camera or the web, or they can create and draw their own in the program using shape and pencil features. Students can have their book read aloud to them and they can record themselves reading the book aloud. Finished books can be published to the web with codes to send home to parents, saved as E-books, or printed. 

Teachers get one free library that holds 40 books. Once you fill your library, you can archive that one and you get another free library with another 40 books. 

Check out this screencast for a tour of the website and a peak at my daughter's first book.  

Personal Screencast of Book Creator

Made with Screencastify

Tweet, Tweet

Recently I revived my Twitter handle for a class I was taking.  I still don't love Twitter, but I do respect that there are some pretty specific scenarios and questions that hands down are best solved by Twitter. In a professional sense, it's a nice way to get a quick overview of ideas from people that I like to follow. It's faster and easier than checking in on all the websites and blogs. Twitter lets me see a quick overview of ideas that I could then go follow up on the blogs. As is the case with most of my social media use, I can see myself as a passive user of Twitter, taking the information that is helpful to me, but rarely posting. Although maybe that will change. After my very first tweet, one of my co-workers mentioned the very next day that she followed my link and also read the article. So perhaps I'll end up using its power.

Top Twitter Resources

Google Teacher Tribe

Shake Up Learning

A new resource that I discovered via Twitter is the Google Teacher Tribe Podcast @GTeacherTribe. This show is hosted by Kasey Bell from Shake Up Learning @ShakeUpLearning and Matt Miller from Ditch That Textbook @DitchThatTxtbk. This podcast seems great. The new season has just started, and the first episode did a great job of summarizing all the new updates to Google Classroom. While many of the changes are pretty intuitive, there are some new things that I definitely learned from their podcast. There are also many people in my school who are just beginning to use Google Classroom so this is really helpful for me to reference as I try to assist them. After listening to the first podcast, I am also going to listen to some previous episodes on Google Keep. They were raving about all the ways they use it, and I have

Ditch That Textbook

 struggled to figure out how to incorporate it. I have trouble getting my notes in Keep organized, so I'm interested to see if they can offer some new ideas on how to manage that.

TweetChat

Did you know that groups of people meet on Twitter to hold discussions? A moderator asks questions and people (teachers) from around the country hold an entire conversation on Twitter following a #. This was obviously an completely foreign concept to me, but my first tweetchat experience was much better than I expected.  I initially was planning to join the #ICEilchat, but I ended up participating in the #mschat (middle school chat) hosted by @Jeremybballer. I am really happy that I stumbled into this chat for my first experience. It was very slow moving which made it easy to understand and follow. There were only 6 or 7 other educators participating and only 6 questions asked during the hour. I could easily follow it and not be overwhelmed. It also happened that most of the other middle school teachers also taught ELA and I discovered a great new story writing app, Storybird that I'm excited to try out. I also watched a lot of the #ICEilchat, but did not actively participate. That chat was much busier with both questions and people, and more challenging to follow my first time. It did look interesting, and I have marked future #ICEchats on my calendar. I may try another one. 

Flipping For Flipgrid

Flipgrid

Flipgrid is a website that allows teachers to post a question and students can respond via a short video with their answer. Student videos get posted to the 'grid' and other students in the class can watch their peers and respond back with either comments or another video. Videos can be no longer than 5:00 minutes. Teachers can watch student responses and leave feedback or reply via video. 

Screen shot of my Flipgrid Dashboard

Student Engagement:

In just two weeks of use, we've made 38 videos on 4 topics that have been watched 763 times. Students in my class have been watching or making videos related to our content for over 5 hours in the past two weeks.  And that's happening outside of class. 

Benefits of Flipgrid: 

• It's interactive. Students get to respond to me and to each other either via text or video. 
• It's engaging. Students get to make a video and "decorate" with stickers and emojis. 
• It's easy to use for both students and teachers. Teachers can check for prior knowledge, get feedback during a lesson or hear student reflections after a lesson. 
• Allows teachers to hear from every student even if they don't like to participate in whole class discussion.
• Students can hear many different perspectives. 
• Opportunity to teach digital citizenship.
• Lots of suggested ideas and video examples from other teachers on how to use in class. 
• It's free. All teachers get a free grid.

In My Class This Week:

I started reading about Flipgrid earlier this semester when I was researching for a presentation on flipped learning. My class is ELA and we do a ton of writing so I think that if students can  have an opportunity to get their thoughts and ideas across to me without have to write a paragraph or essay they are going to be thrilled. (However for my first 'real' assignment they are actually going to have to do both). I had students record a basic trial video introducing themselves and answering our "Would You Rather... Wednesday Question" via Flipgrid instead of on Google Classroom. For the first go-round it wasn't too bad. There were a few growing pains as we learned how to share the space so that everyone could be heard while they were recording, but it was their first experience and that's to be expected. 
We are going to do our first real assignment later this week. We are watching a tv version of the story we just read. After we finish watching the movie, students will respond to whether they like the book or movie version of our current story better. Traditionally, I have students write this as an opinion paragraph. I'm still going to have them write the paragraph because 1). they need the practice, but 2). I want to make sure they have good content in their video. 'The Would You Rather Responses' were a little light on details. I'm hoping if they prepare ahead of time then they'll give me enough information to show understanding. As we practice, this step will hopefully become less necessary. 

Welcome to this Blog!

Hi!  My name is Lisa Gibbons and this blog is dedicated to helping teachers, librarians, and other school folk integrate and use technology with students to expand learning and improve lessons. 

Work History

I currently work in Central Stickney Township for a small school district in an unincorporated area of Chicago.  Our township is 4 blocks x 8 blocks big. We are completely surrounded by the city of Chicago, but have our own school district, fire dept., park district, etc. I taught 6th, 7th, and 8th grade science for three years when I first started there, and then switched to teaching language arts. I've been in the language arts classroom for the past 14 years. But this year, I am moving (somewhat) out of the classroom. I will be teaching 8th grade language arts part-time and working part-time as an instructional coach helping other teachers in the building use our newly purchased chrome books to incorporate more technology and 21st century learning into their lessons.  

Education

I am just starting the Technology Specialist program at Dominican University as part of this new position. I have also earned an ELL Endorsement from National Louis University, my M.A. as a reading specialist from St. Xavier University, and I attended the University of Michigan where I studied Elementary Education for my undergraduate degree.

My kids at Camp Michigania-my favorite 
place on Earth Summer 2017. 
(personal photo)

Background

I was born and raised in Michigan and moved to Chicago after graduating from college. I met my husband here (although we grew up less than 5 miles away from each--crazy small world!) and we lived in the city for many years until our kids reached school age. We moved to the western suburbs of Chicago about with our kids who are now in elementary school. 

 About Me

Our annual Thanksgiving Turkey trot.
Last Thanksgiving our kids were big
enough to join the race. (personal photo)

I love to read and travel. I also enjoy running--but not quite as much as reading and traveling.  I read a ridiculous number of YA books.  I say it's for my job, but truly I just really like YA.  I also really enjoy historical fiction, and honestly read just about every genre out there.  My family definitely takes advantage of my summers off! We have a summer family road trip tradition. This past year, we drove to Yellowstone National Park and Grand Teton National Park. We saw five states and seven National Parks/Historic Monuments along the way. It was some of the most beautiful scenery. My new travel goal is to see most, maybe even all, of our National Parks. So far, I have made it to only eight out of fifty-eight. So it's an ambitious goal.

My husband and kiddos in Yellowstone
National Park on our family road trip.
(personal photo)

I am always excited to learn about new technologies that I can bring to my students and the other teachers in my building that engage kids in learning. Our district went one-to-one last year for our middle school students and having access to that kind of technology has made teaching much easier, but also much harder. Access to materials and new, interesting ways to teach things has helped some students stay more engaged, but it also means rethinking lessons, researching new websites, apps, and extensions, and always keeping in mind the "why of doing something." Technology for better learning, not technology for the sake of technology.