'Flipping' Out at BHS

Over the past couple of years, some BHS teachers have shared with me their interest in experimenting with the flipped model. While in some cases this might seem daunting, there are different ways in which flipping can happen.  Three teachers in particular have started to create instructional videos for their students to watch outside of the classroom: Mr. Fritz, Mrs. Dudgeon, and Mrs. Dreyer.

Mr. Fritz teaches mathematics at Bedford. In his videos, he typically highlights a particular problem for his students. By doing, this he hopes that it will trigger their memory as to what they have to do on their own for their homework. The videos that he makes are no longer than 5 minutes long and are to the point.



Tools that Mr. Fritz needs to complete the video:

• SMART Notebook software
• This allows Mr. Fritz to be able to annotate his work while he is recording
• Screencast-O-Matic software
• This allows Mr. Fritz to record what he is doing on his computer screen
• Free downloadable software - allows you to create up to 15 minutes worth of video per recording
• Direct uploading options right to YouTube
• Wacom Tablet
• This allows Mr. Fritz to take control of his laptop with a pen so that he can 'pencast' his lesson
• Basically a pen takes control of his computer so that he is able to write and annotate his work
• YouTube
• This allows Mr. Fritz to store all of his videos in one place online for his students to access

Here is the process that he takes to complete a video:

• Opens up SMART Notebook software
• Pre-populates the question that he will answer in the video on a notebook file
• Opens Screencast-O-matic software and places the recording window over the area he wants to record
• Records the video
• Uploads video to YouTube
• Sets appropriate settings to video as well as puts it in a playlist in YouTube

Mrs. Dudgeon teaches humanities at BHS. She attended a history conference last spring and got jazzed up about the possibilities of flipping her classroom.  In her videos, she asks her students to learn about a new topic or idea ahead of time for homework. Then, students come into class the next day ready to discuss what was shared in the video. In the video below, you will even hear Mrs. Dudgeon say that students must fill out the homework worksheet as they listen to the video. This will then be proof to her that the students watch the video as well as through the discussion students have with her about the topic. What is also great about this is that if students are ever absent from class, they can still watch and listen to the lecture online. In addition, any student can go back to these videos as many times as they need to to make sure that they fully comprehend the information.

Mrs. Dudgeon uses a similar process as Mr. Fritz in creating these videos. However, you will notice that she does not have any annotations.  Instead, she had a presentation made in either in Google Slides, PowerPoint or Keynote. Then she used Screencast-O-Matic to record her lecture, followed by uploading it to YouTube.

If you would like to see more videos made by these two teachers, check out their YouTube Channels:

Mr. Fritz YouTube Channel

Mrs. Dudgeon YouTube Channel

Feel free to even subscribe to their channels and be notified when they upload new videos.

YouTube Tips:

• Make sure videos are public when you are ready for people to see them
• Make playlists to group similar videos to help viewers find videos
• Use tagging feature with each video - this helps with the 'related videos' that pop up at the end. Might not be a bad idea to create your own tag. For instance, I always use #bhstech222 whenever I upload a video to YouTube.
• Uncheck allow comments or moderate comments for each video to fight against spam or inappropriate content

It is important to note that there is not one way of making videos. In fact, there are many apps on the iPad that allow teachers to create and upload videos online for viewing. One such application is Educreations. Mrs. Dreyer has been teaching a Personal Finance course for the past couple of summers to students in a hybrid/online platform. As a result of this, she had to make sure that students could access content online and in some cases, this meant that videos had to be made. Similar to Mrs. Dudgeon, students had learned about the topic ahead of time in the video. Then the participated in a discussion via Google Groups. Since Mrs. Dreyer is using the Educreations App, her videos are stored on their website rather than on YouTube.

Mrs. Dreyer has even shared with me results from her end of the class survey from her students. Students have shared their appreciation for Mrs. Dreyer in making her own videos. They indicated that they enjoyed hearing from their own teacher rather than a stranger.  Now this does not mean that a teacher can never show a video made by someone else, but it does shed light on the fact that students connect with their own teacher.

Click HERE to view this video in Educreations

I appreciate the fact that these three teachers are willing to put themselves out there for the world to see and hear. Humans are not perfect and Mrs. Dudgeon, Mrs. Dreyer, and Mr. Fritz are not an exception.  It is ok if the videos are not perfect - in fact I think that is one stumbling block that some teachers have a hard time with. They want things to be perfect, but in reality it is ok if the videos are not perfect.  Mr. Fritz even mentioned in one of his latest videos that he was going to try and stop saying the word 'HERE' as students made a comment about it. I think it is great that theses teachers feel comfortable enough to make these videos.  Most people do not even like to hear their voices out loud but this did not stop them from starting their adventure into 'flipping' their classroom. It is also important to note that flipping is not meant for everything - I believe that high school students still need that human interaction.

If you are inspired to potentially implement some videos into your curriculum, feel free to talk to me any time! No idea is too small of an idea. I will help walk you through a process that makes sense with your needs and wants. You know where to find me...

** Big thanks to David Gilbert of Windham High School for the inspiration of how he flips his math classroom**

Exploring 'One-to-One' with Chromebooks

This year, we have decided to explore what a one-to-one device scenario would look like with Chromebooks.  When I say one-to-one, I am using that terminology very loosely.  Students do not actually have their own device.  However, we are trying to replicate that situation as best as we can.

For the first semester, we have two chromebook carts housed permanently in one room that is being used by the American Dream Post Secondary Prep Humanities classes. This consists of three classes taught by two different team teachers (teams are taught by a history and english teacher). This year, Mr. Ahnert and Ms. Uliasz and Mr. Lukach and Mrs. Corbin are involved. Our thought is that if the teachers and students can both rely on the fact that there will always be a device in the room, both parties might find it more useful to implement the technology.

In our current system, teachers have to plan ahead to sign out a laptop cart in order for students to complete work using technology.  In some cases, if the teacher does not sign out a cart at least a week in advance, they might not get the devices when they absolutely need them.  As a result, particular instruction might not to happen at times due to a scheduling issue. We all know that there are moments in instruction where a teacher could really use technology for five minutes due to the conversation at that moment.  In our current model that is just not possible.  However, with our one-to-one pilot, we hope that these spontaneous moments will be served well.

Setup:

• 2 Chromebook carts housed in one classroom.  These classes have class numbers ranging from 35-45 students
• Students using the device are 10th graders
• Our tech department set up the chromebooks with management software so that we can control certain things with the device.
• I worked with the American Dream team to come up with a plan as to how these devices would be introduced to the students as well as why they even had them in the first place. (It is important to note that the majority of the students have never used a chromebook before as prior to this year, seeing as though we have only been a Mac school).

Introduction:

It was important to the teachers that the chromebook was not the focus of the course, instead they wanted to make sure it was a supplement to help support their learning.  I could not agree more.  Thus, these devices were not introduced to the students until the third day of school.

Before I even spoke to the students, one humanities team had students think about what the advantages and disadvantages would be if students were in a classroom where computers were always at their disposal.  They had to write their responses down in a T-chart. This was a great way of having students process what that setting would look like prior to being introduced to it.

I was blown away when I heard the responses from students as I did not expect to hear some of them.  Below is a picture of the results from the students.

A short presentation was created for the students to understand what our expectations are of them when using the devices.

In this presentation, students were explained

• to use the devices for educational purposes
• only use their issued device for that block
• lock their computer when leaving the room
• close lids when not using device to help with self management
• not to eat or drink when devices are out
• how to know if they need to pick up device when walking into the room
• differences of logging into the chromebook as opposed to a Mac computer

Picture above shows a que for students in letting them know if they are to pick up a chromebook when they walk into class. (teachers will not have students get one if they know for certain students would not use them at all).

Activities:

After the presentation, students logged onto the chromebook to do their own exploration through a Chromebook scavenger hunt. I was able to find a scavenger hunt that was already made, but made some alternations to it to Bedfordize it. (Thanks to Rick Lapi)  Chromebook Scavenger Hunt Google Doc The students individually worked through the scavenger hunt.

Since this document was not something that the teachers were assessing students on, student did not submit their work using Google Classroom.  Instead, they were shown how to organize their digital work in Drive. One or our focuses as teachers for these classes is to make sure that students are learning how to be a good digital learner. The teachers want to eliminate all of those untitled documents.  They also do not want to see any document on the My Drive list meaning that all files have been stored in some folder. Students were walked through the process of creating an American Dream folder to drop the Scavenger Hunt into it.

The next day, students came into class and played a Kahoot! quiz on chromebooks to see what they learned from the day before.  Again, the teachers wanted to make sure that students knew how to use the device that was in front of them so that they can start off the year right.  If you would like to see the quiz that the students took on Kahoot!, we made it public. Just search for Intro to Chromebooks (authored by sheilc).

We look forward to seeing if and how these devices help with student learning.  We have made a Google Form that teachers will fill out every week to help keep track of how often the devices are being used each week and for what purpose.  Just another way of collecting data to look at in the future.

I must say that BHS is very fortunate that we have a group of teachers who are willing to try something new and potentially change the way they have taught the class before.  I can't wait to see where this might bring us.  Only time will tell...

Proud to be a Bulldog