It has been a Flipgrid week. My first-year students in the Oranim English Department made introductory videos. The students, taking their first steps in academia, presented themselves in English in ninety-second videos. Looking at their faces, hearing about their backgrounds, their hobbies, and their dreams of becoming teachers was a pleasure for me, but it was much more than that. In an a-synchronous higher education course, where I only met the students once in a large group on Zoom, this opportunity to see and hear them one by one at the beginning of the course was crucial. Through their Flipgrid videos, I ‘met’ the students as individuals, but just as important, I got to see the group, made up of those individuals. As it always happens in the classroom, I was struck by the rich multicultural nature of our groups: Jews, both secular and religious, Muslims, Christians, and Druze, studying together in harmony. I believe that this was an excellent way to get to know these first-year students and for them to get to know each other. Starting their first academic year with no face-to-face contact, the importance of social-emotional activities like these, should not be underestimated. The Flipgrid tool is inviting, refreshing, arouses curiosity, and as the website says, really does give every student a voice.
As a teacher-educator, another benefit of the activity is that I now have a grid of faces and names which I can refer to when I receive student work, emails, and requests for assistance. I can connect the name to a person. Almost all the students in the group completed the task on time.
Later in the week, I led an in-service workshop for 30 elementary school teachers. The main focus of the lesson was ways to arouse and maintain dialogue with students learning from home. The grade 1-6 teachers brainstormed where and how they manage to hear their students. It appears that dialogue with individuals mainly occurs when students arrive early or stay late in the synchronous online classes and Zoom breakout rooms. Some of the teachers supplement synchronous lessons with phone calls.
I presented Flipgrid as an opportunity to hear every student through an endless range of cognitive, social and emotional tasks.
Most of the teachers were active throughout the session and showed great interest in the tool. Most managed to post a video on the grid and to achieve a trial of the tool. The practice task for the teachers was to tell two truthful stories about their experiences in online teaching and one lie. They recorded the three stories on Flipgrid in preparation for the game. Unfortunately, there wasn’t time to invite the other teachers to listen and to try to guess their lies; we’ll leave that for next time.
The big step forward now is asking the teachers to sign up and to prepare a flipgrid activity for their students – that’s the only way that the teachers will add the tool to their pedagogical toolboxes. Without hands-on practice, the learning will probably be forgotten. I am optimistic that like me, most of the teachers will have a successful and exciting experience using Flipgrid with their students and will continue to use it. Flipgrid is a powerful tool which is focused on communication, improving speaking skills, giving and receiving feedback, but and most importantly, gives each individual in the group a chance to be heard.
After the success, with my first-year students and the teachers, I prepared a Flipgrid activity for my second-year English didactics students. They are required to create a video sharing a significant learning experience they will never forget. I am genuinely interested to see what experiences they tell in their videos and hope that they will provide examples that I can use in our lessons to come. I assume many of the students will talk about learning in their elementary school or high school classes and I’m sure some will tell of learning in the army. There may be others who tell about informal learning, in family or social situations.
Yesterday I was challenged by an email from one of the second-year students, representing members of the group. The student explained that they felt uncomfortable filming themselves and preferred to do the task in writing. It took me a while to reflect on the situation and to decide that I don’t want to lose the opportunity of them experiencing the tool. My enthusiasm for the possibilities of the activity in their future classrooms led me to respond with the following email:
Dear Students,
I understand that there is some concern about the video task in unit two.
I want to explain my use of video, why the task is essential for me as a teacher, and for you as pre-service teachers. I also want to suggest another option.
Flipgrid is a wonderful, teacher/student-friendly, free tool which can be extremely powerful for teaching in all classrooms (from kindergarten through higher education). It develops speaking skills, allows each student to find his/her voice, promotes collaboration, develops critical thinking skills and is multidisciplinary. It is important to note that the Flipgrid platform is secure and safe. The teacher has to authorise every video and every comment before they are published. Also, after teacher authorisation, only members of the particular class can view the videos and comment on them. I have used Flipgrid before, and both the students and I have been enthusiastic about the results.
After you experience Flipgrid in the role of students, we will learn how to use it in your teaching. You will then be able to decide if, when and how you wish to adopt it as a teaching tool.
I understand that seeing yourselves on video, and sharing the video can be unsettling. In this age of distance learning, we will learn throughout this course, that teachers need to jump this hurdle and get used to seeing and hearing themselves. Speaking English in front of your peers is also worrying for some, but that is also something you need to master before you enter the classroom (even more so next year when you will be in secondary schools). Teachers are judged by their speaking skills – starting in job interviews and then through their careers. In this course (and others), we are preparing you to be professionals, and speaking in front of others is one of your main tools.
One of the benefits of Flipgrid is that you can cover your face with emojis or even point the camera at your cat while you are speaking. Also, I am proposing two changes to the task which might make it easier for you at this stage.
A. I will add an alternative video task. I assume that some of you might have felt uncomfortable about the personal character of the prompt – a significant learning experience. The second prompt will also be about learning but will be more distant.
B. If, despite all this explanation you are unable to share your video, you can write me a personal email before you submit your video and ask that I view it without publishing it for others to see.
And on a personal note, if you have difficulty with a task or anything connected to the course, please talk to me individually, in your own names, and not as a group. I can then attend to your needs as individuals. Speaking up for yourself is also an important skill to develop as you become educators.
I’m here for you all and welcome any comments.
Warm regards,
Nikki
Some students have already posted excellent videos; a few responded to my email that they understand my explanation, and one student received an exemption based on personal reasons. I am eager to see how the activity unfolds and will make time for an in-depth discussion on the use of the tool and the uncertainties it holds for some students, in our next Zoom lesson.
My next step will be to use Flipgrid with my pre-service teachers in their school-based practicum. I will encourage them to introduce the new tool to their mentor teachers; I have encountered a significant drawback; a lack of tutorial materials with Hebrew subtitles.
It’s undoubtedly been a Flipgrid week. Interestingly enough, I have never made a video of my own and have never responded to participants in video – that is probably the next step for me.
The excitement I experience as a teacher educator working with the tool and how I continuously check for new student videos is a sure sign that this teaching-learning is meaningful for me too.
I would love to hear comments about your experiences with Flipgrid or the use of video in the classroom, and your thoughts on my experiences described here.
