MU Harless FLiPPeD Classroom: explain everything

At our October 4 Flipped Learning session, Nikki Buchman demonstrated Office Mix. I know I speak for our entire group when I say that we were blown away. This suite of tools is available to users of Office 2013 and gives the capability to include many aspects of flipped learning to PowerPoint presentations and to export videos. Since all educators in West Virginia are licensed to install five copies of Office 365 (including PowerPoint 2013) this is a great fit for us.

Office Mix installs a plug-in on PowerPoint 2013 that allows educators to include screen clips, videos, quizzes, voice over and a plethora of tools specifically for inclusion in PowerPoint Mixes. Once students have a k12 email address, you can tap some great statistics on student access. Even now, students can take advantage of the Mix lessons although you will not get the analytics unless the students log in.

Many thanks to Nikki for bringing this to our attention and demonstrating it to us. We can add this to our toolbox that already includes Screencast-o-matic and Explain Everything. I would encourage you to try making a small flipped lesson with Office Mix.

Sunday, December 15, 2013

December 14 Flipped Classroom Session

The December 14 session of the June Harless Center Flipped Classroom group was very productive despite the coating of ice that coated many streets and sidewalks in the area.

We had review and enhancement sessions on iMovie, ExplainEverything and Touchcast. We reviewed procedures for connecting to Google Hangouts from a PC and a tablet. PJ, Summer, Nikki and Jason shared some of their instructional videos and how they used them in their classes.

Dr. Maynard made an announcement that significant donations are being made to the Harless Center to continue and expand the flipped learning project through the purchase of classroom sets of iPad tablets. Dr. Maynard also submitted a proposal to the Higher Education Policy Commission to fund the professional development portion of the flipped learning project.

It was suggested that we take a look at Nearpod to determine if it will fill a niche in this project. It is being used very effectively in many schools for blended delivery and reinforcing classroom instruction. After we have a chance to download the Nearpod app and try it we should have a discussion of it in an upcoming session.

The Wayne County teachers have asked that the Harless Center follow up with Wayne County to determine when they can expect to receive their iPad tablets for the project.

The professional development session concluded by selecting Saturday, January 11 as the next meeting date. The time will be from 10 am – 3 pm and the location of Drinko Library will be confirmed. The agenda for the day will be supported development of flipped video. Everyone will need to bring materials to prepare one flipped lesson. This could be notes, a textbook, images, links or anything you think you will need to prepare a short lesson for your class. We will breakout into small groups for the morning. Each small group will have a mentor who will assist with technical aspects of your choice of development tools (iMovie, Touchcast or Explain Everything). After lunch, we will share our videos and help each other in making better resources for our students. Of course, this January date is subject to weather.

The possibility of a February meeting as a Google Hangout was suggested with the focus on assessing flipped lessons. We can split our Hangout into morning and afternoon sessions as we did in November if desired. A sign-up sheet will be posted as before for the Hangouts if a Hangout is selected for February.