Getting My Wife to Flip for Me! (Part 3)

My wife has been bitten by the “flipping” bug.  She is already talking about how the new teaching methods associated with Common Core will coexist nicely with the flipped environment.  I am thrilled that she is so onboard with this after being somewhat skeptical, initially.

We are at the end of the first week of flipped videos being assigned to her two fifth grade math classes.  Of course, the inevitable glitches are starting to crop up.  I decided to burn the videos to a DVD for the students who did not have an internet capable computer (or other YouTube access), but own a DVD player.  I thought this part would be a piece of cake--WRONG!

So as to not bore you with techie speak, I am going to keep this part short.  In a nutshell, a Flip Camera video (MP4) must first be converted, before it can be burned on a DVD.  Even then, it may play on a computer but not on a household DVD player.  After a lot of research and trial and error, I stumbled upon a program called E.M. TotalVideo2DVD.  This program converted and burned DVDs flawlessly.  The trial version has a slight watermark (not too distracting) and the paid version has very reasonable purchase price of $35.

Week one of flipped video assignments (two videos) is completed.  Overall the students are reporting that they like watching these videos at home instead of doing traditional homework. However, below is a list of interesting tidbits for the week:

• One student wasn’t allowed to use their family DVD player because it would tie-up the TV.
• A couple of parents were thankful for the videos, because it better enabled them to understand their child’s math work.
• One of the students commented on YouTube by using a common texting acronym that contained profanity.  This provided a great teachable moment on the need for netiquette and a trip to the vice-principal’s office.
• One student emailed the first night expressing a lack of understanding, then emailed back after watching it a second time--informing us that he now “got it”.

Kim and I are both encouraged by our first attempt at “flipping”.  We are going to let this play out over the next couple of weeks and then try to gather some achievement data, which of course is the purpose of making a major instructional change.

Our final report on our “flipped” classroom will be ready in a couple of weeks.

Getting My Wife to Flip for Me! (Part 2)

Well, we made it to Spring Break.  It is Good Friday and the students have been released early.  Many of the the teachers have also scrammed, leaving Kim (my wife) and me with a fairly quiet school.  Yes, we are the dedicated (or crazy) Tech Facilitator and 5th grade Math teacher who are determined to give "flipping" a try and make it work. (See "Getting My Wife to Flip for Me--Part I)  What a great time to make more "flipped classroom" videos!

I was so disappointed with the sound quality and volume of the RCA Small Wonder video camera that I decided to borrow a named brand "Flip" Video camera.  Our two newest videos can be seen at the end of this post.  I think you will agree that the quality of these videos is a major improvement.

Now that we have three videos in the "can", how will they be received by the students and their parents? First of all, we sent a letter home to the parents describing this new innovative approach and surveying their internet access capabilities.  This was a major concern because our school is a Title 1 school.  We were pleasantly surprised that out of a total of 44 students (2 math classes), only six students did not have access to YouTube from home.  All of the other households reported that they could access YouTube from at least one source (smartphone, computer, tablet, Xbox, PlayStation, other game consoles.)  The six households without internet access reported that they had access to a DVD player.  For these students, we have decided to burn a DVD with the flipped videos.

We are getting closer.  The first video assignment is scheduled for April 17.  Stay tuned for the next update!

The Sum of Interior Angles (SOIA)

Order of Operations