So my fellow Nerdy Teacher Kelly sent me a text this morning telling me to check it out. She's doing a PAGE (Professional Association of Georgia Educators) Academy and has been studying it. Since we say that we share one big nerdy brain, I decided to check it out.
And here are my thoughts.
Please Note: My knowledge on this topic is very slim. Now that I've said that...
It seems to me that this is geared towards the upper grades. But I'm thinking about how it could work in my fifth grade classroom.
We already use Edmodo (I love it, by the way), which is a social-networking site for students, free for K-12 educators and students. It's private, safe, and only teachers, administrators, students, and parents can access the site. I post assignments on it all the time, conduct surveys, link to interesting videos and articles, etc. Students complete assignments, share articles that they have found, and even upload extra credit projects for their classmates to see.
I'm thinking I could use Edmodo to post videos and PowerPoints for students to view. They could take notes at home, then come in ready the next day to work on activities based on that topic.
I know I have some students who don't have Internet access, so they could view these things during their lunch time.
I made a screencast video on how to create a Tagxedo for our social studies class. The students thought it was so cool that I was narrating the video and moving the mouse along to create this neat graphic online. I am thinking I could create screencasts of me narrating and expounding upon my PowerPoints for students.
What's great about this (I think) is that students could take notes at home when they watch the videos (I'd keep them under 7 minutes each), but the note-taking would be more tailored to each individual's needs. A student could pause the video, back it up to repeat parts, and even watch the entire video over again if necessary. No more feeling like they can't keep up with me when I give them notes, and on the flip side, no more finishing notes quickly and having to wait on everyone else.
I think this is a great idea to explore, especially the last month of school as a trial run. What do you think?
*Update: I've been reading comments about the flipped classroom online. I just want people to know that I'm not planning to QUIT teaching in my classroom. Holy smokes - every moment is a teachable moment somehow for someone! I just think that taking notes from my own recorded powerpoint at home, say in social studies, could be one way to give kids prior knowledge for the next day when I go into detail and give them problems related to that topic to solve. It'd give us more time in class to THINK :)