What Does Flipgrid Offer?
Flipgrid creates a community for your learners to learn from each other. Students can respond to teacher-created prompts in a video format, but can also view each others' responses and reply accordingly! It also offers:
- Opportunities to feature students' responses as 'topic' starters for their classmates
- The ability to respond to students' work with video or written feedback
- Opportunities for teachers to formatively assess students' understanding with teacher-created prompts for students to respond to
- Stickies to write notes to yourself when recording a response
- Digital stickers and Emojis for students and teachers to use on their video responses to become creative with their work and have fun!
- So much more!
Standards Relating to Flipgrid
Flipgrid Terms to Know
Grid: Your class' or specific community of students' main base where all prompts and responses will be posted.
Topic: Prompts or discussion starters which students can respond to.
Spark: When a student's response is 'sparked' or turned into a 'spark', it is turned into its own topic for students to use as a new prompt.
Vibe: Public feedback left on a student's response for all students to see.
Stickie: Digital sticky notes that students can put onto their screen when they are recording their own video response to remember notes that they have made for themselves.
MixTape: When student responses prove to be very useful for others to view, teachers can highlight these responses on a mixtape. This compiles all of the highlighted videos in one central spot for students to view.
Creating an Account
Setting up an account through Flipgrid (https://flipgrid.com) is an easy process! Watch the tutorial below to follow along with how to start an account.
Navigating the Flipgrid Site
The Flipgrid home screen features a main toolbar that gives you access to various collaborative opportunities. Use the following guide to take advantage of all that Flipgrid has to offer!
Getting Started with Grids & Topics
Creating 'grids' and 'topics' will allow students to start communicating and responding on Flipgrid. Different grids can be created for different classes (which is a great option for middle and high school teachers!) while topics can be created for different prompts that educators would like their students to respond to! Use the guide below to see how to set-up and access both grids and topics on Flipgrid.
Highlighting Student Responses with MixTapes
In Flipgrid, teachers can highlight student responses by adding them to 'MixTapes'. MixTapes are used to compile video responses that teachers feel others should view as examples of student work! Use the guide below to learn how to create 'MixTapes' and add student responses to them.
Student as Leaders: Sparks and Vibes
'Sparks' and 'Vibes' can be used on Flipgrid to highlight students (and their work) as leaders! Student responses can be 'sparked' into their own topic if educators feel that all students should watch/listen to their peer's response and comment/reflect on it. The photos below show how to set up 'sparks' to turn student work into leadership moments!
Teachers can also leave 'vibes' on students' video responses in the form of comments that all of the Grid participants (class members) can see to use as feedback, advice, etc. The photos below show how to navigate through setting up 'vibes' for students to view on Flipgrid.
Providing Private Feedback for Students
Teachers can also leave private feedback for students on their video responses. This feedback will only be visible to the student who created the video response versus 'vibes' that are left as feedback that can be viewed by anyone with access to that grid. Within this feedback, teachers can rate the student using a Flipgrid rubric (with categories like 'Ideas' and 'Performance') or their own self-created rubric. Teachers can leave a comment along with this rubric in written form or in a video response! The photos below detail the steps needed to leave this feedback for students.
Other Features of Flipgrid to Explore
GridPal: Through GridPal, educators can connect with each other not only on Flipgrid, but also through various social media sites to grow their PLNs! Utilize the map feature to see where other Flipgrid users are located and to reach out!
Copilots: Educators can invite other educators (or administrators, teaching assistants, etc.) to collaborate with them on grids. A copilot has the same access to student responses as the grid creator!
Discovery Library: Within the Discovery Library, educators have access to thousands of topic templates that other community members have created. These templates can be used with your own students and contain all prompts, resources, etc. that the original creator originally intended! Topics can be searched for by grade level, educational topic, and intended audience.
Hashtags & Chats: Through hashtags and chats, Flipgrid offers countless ways to become involved in their learning community. Through social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, educators converse to strengthen their PLNs and further their own knowledge.
Pros vs. Cons of Using Flipgrid
Flipgrid Lesson Idea #1: Series Book Club Conversations
Flipgrid Lesson Idea #2: Debate on Social Studies Topic
Flipgrid Lesson Idea #3: Asking/Answering Questions for Incoming New Class
Alternative Technologies
Spiral (https://spiral.ac): A collaborative app that can be utilized for formative assessment, much like Flipgrid, where students can respond to teacher created prompts, quizzes and presentations. The teacher can turn any created video into a live chat where students can share their thoughts. Students can also collaborate as groups to develop their own presentations.
Kaizena (https://www.kaizena.com): If Google Docs is utilized frequently in your classroom, but it seems like a long and tedious process to offer teacher (or even student) feedback to your students' work, Kaizena is the app to help! Through Kaizena, teachers can provide private or group feedback to students on Google Docs work. Teachers can also invite students to private or group conversations to discuss progress/understanding.
Backchannel Chat (https://backchannelchat.com): Backchannel Chat offers a common spot for students to converse about their understanding and learning of new topics. The site serves as an online discussion board for students to post written responses to each others' ideas. Teachers can moderate the responses that students post and can even print out transcripts of student conversations as a point of data for student assessment.
Resources
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Kaizena. (n.d.). Retrieved July 1, 2019 from https://www.kaizena.com.
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National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, & Council of Chief State School Officers. (2010). Common Core State Standards. Retrieved July 1, 2019 from http://www.corestandards.org.
Pineapple15. (n.d.). Question mark [Digital image]. Retrieved July 1, 2019, from https://search.creativecommons.org/photos/f07393c0-05f4-4d26-8d29-9f8342096390.
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