Flipping the Classroom

I talked about the Flipped Classroom a few months ago and if you go back to that post there is a great info graphic that talks about what it is. I've been thinking, pondering and trying to brainstorm about how I can flip my general music class for my middle school students. I just introduced, Edmodo,( which I talked about in this post --> Edmodo ) to my 7th and 8th grade students. If you have not explored Edmodo and are looking for a very user friendly micro blogging environment that is safe and secure, go check it out. Moving on- I really would like to do this and I'm going to figure out how soon but in the mean time, in my research for ideas, I came across an excellent set of videos that would be great for a flipped history class. Crash Course in History videos can be found on YouTube Edu. They are 42 high quality videos that present history; each average 12 minutes long. I watched the first one and felt that they were definitely appropriate for high school students, perhaps middle school depending on your students. Crash Course also has 35 videos for Biology. I recommend taking a closer look at these if this is your course, either as a student or teacher, and perhaps use them to flip your own classroom.

Well this still brings me to no big solution for myself in flipping my classroom, but hey, I'll figure it out. And when I do, you will definitely hear about it.

History teachers- you may also enjoy History for Music Lovers also on YouTube.

October

Yeah, so this blogging isn't working out very well. I made a promise last month that I would do better. Hasn't really come true though. Which troubles me since I feel that blogging is an important part of being an educator. There is the old saying that the best teachers have all used other teachers ideas. And it's true. Teachers don't necessarily "steal" it. They take it, modify it, re-arrange it, re-do it, adjust it, take it apart and reassemble it. It more or less stays the same but not really. That's what you have to love about true teachers. They are marvels at improvising. They know how to spin gold out of straw. So blogging is one way for teachers to share what they do, what they have found, what works, what doesn't and how they did it differently today than yesterday.

So here I am sharing something I found. One of my favorite and best ever blogs to follow is Free Technology for Teachers. Fabulous stuff here. I saw a post he made about alternatives to YouTube in the classroom. So many times you find this great video to use in class and of course YouTube is blocked. Now what? Well this list might be helpful. The only drawback I see is that many alternative sites I have tried have so little material that they really aren't worth my time to dig through the videos. But you never know. I suppose I won't stop trying. Perhaps you will have better luck.