You're Going to Flip!

Flipping Your Class 101

     Flipping has now officially become a norm in the classroom. You have a real guru in Ramsey Musallam and others writing books on the topic. There are many benefits to flipping your class .
     Teachers are using screen casting to help them flip their classes. You can record lectures or demonstrations for students to view at home, and they can come to class prepared with questions. Screen casts can be viewed anywhere and saved for future reference. Students can now rewind the teacher to gain better understanding of the subject at hand. This is a great tool to have in your tool belt no matter what screen casting app you choose to use. Here are a few we have used!

Screencast-o-matic.com

     Screencast-o-matic is a Web 2.0 used to create screen casts on Windows or Mac operating systems.  It runs in a browser window. Go to the site and hit "Start Recording", frame your recording and start teaching. It’s that easy to use! The site also gives you the option of downloading and installing the free app to your computer.

     The app records your screen, and, if you have a microphone, you can record your voice to go with the video. Advantages to using this screen casting option is the ability to include video of yourself in a picture-in-picture format, so students still have that personal touch.

     Unfortunately you are limited to a 15 minute recording with the free version, and you cannot edit your screen cast from the site unless you purchase a Pro account for $12 a year. What you can do is download your video in a variety of formats and use any movie editing application you might have at your disposal. You can then post the video on your website or anywhere else on the web. As far as ease of use, we highly recommend this app.

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iPad Flipping

There has got to be an app for that, right? There are many, and we like a lot of them. The one we want to talk about  here is Educreations.

Educreations is a full featured whiteboard app that allows for screen recording. The whiteboard component is everything you would expect: different inks, the ability to import pictures, annotate over images, and record your voice as you explain. This app also lets you take the video that is created within the app and then embed it or share it via email, twitter, or Facebook. Educreations is free, and anyone can create an account, including students. If you are getting ready to flip your class and would like some material because you are not ready to make you own video, there is always YouTube, but Educreations offers a vast library of educational videos sorted by subject and grade. 

Educreations for iPad

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Quicktime for Macs

Macs are built for flipping. Well, not really, but they do have a built in screen capture tool that comes with Quicktime. To access screen capture launch the Quicktime application. Once the application is open, select file, then click "Start new screen recording". 

Quicktime will automatically save the files to .mov format, which works well with other Apple products like iMovie. You can also directly upload to Youtube. Quicktime screen-casting is great for adding a voice over to a Powerpoint or Keynote presentation. If you already own a Macbook product, then flipping your classroom is right at your finger tips. Happy Flipping!

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Tutorials

PSUSD must unblock Youtube to watch videos.