Microsoft Flip
Location:
Online
Field of activity – formal/informal/non-formal:
Social learnig, collaborative learning, multimedia education, mobile learning- formal/informal/non-formal education
Overall cost/budget:
Free Microsoft webapp available for Apple and Android
Target group:
Adult educators
Implementing organization/lead organization:
Microsoft Corporation
Contact info:
Resources:
Challenge or social need:
Flip is a useful tool to give voice to students in class and at home through the simple act of recording and sharing short videos.
Flip can be used for social learning, to share school curricula and teaching materials, to break the gap between teachers and students, to encouraging reflection and to brainstorm ideas and narratives.
Description:
Flip is an educational video discussion platform that can be used by teachers, students, and families to create and share videos.
The functionality of this platform is appealing in that teachers can post any type of resource by presenting a topic or sharing questions, which can then be answered by the students in the class with short videos of their own making.
Through Flip, teachers can create “grids” to facilitate discussions using short videos produced with their mobile devices. Each grid created with Flip is like a noticeboard where teachers can pose questions, called “topics”, and students can post video responses that are displayed in a tiled grid. Grids can be shared with classes, small groups or a community of users interested in a certain topic. Each grid can contain an unlimited number of topics and each topic can contain an unlimited number of answers. Topics can refer to a text or include a resource such as an image, video, animated gifs, emoji, or attachment.
Benefits/success factors/ measurement of success:
Although the design may resemble that of a common social network, it is a platform designed for teaching and managed entirely by the teacher in a protected online environment, which allows data privacy preferences to be set.
The application’s user-friendliness, particularly intuitive graphical interface, and the possibility of recording audio as well as video make Flip an accessible tool for everyone, and therefore also ideal for the inclusion of stdents with BES and DSA.
Flip can also be used to extend the educational experience beyond the school dimension, including family, friends, and other schools, for example in exchange and e-twinning projects (eTwinning, Erasmus+, etc.).
It can be an excellent tool for activating flipped teaching (an active teaching methodology that places the student at the centre and “flips” the traditional approach based on the frontal lesson), using a language that is particularly congenial to young people, that of videos and podcasts. The flipped classroom fits in well with the use of new technologies, which can be an excellent ally for teaching.
Critical points/weaknesses:
Instructor time commitment: teachers have to watch, grate and provide feedback for all posted videos responses by students. Though each video response is short, the course instructor should spend several hours doing this. It is unlikely that this would be feasible for a single instructor to implement regularly or for a large class. Teaching assistance may be needed and/or limiting the submissions’ video time or number of assignments where Flip is used.
Facilitating discussion: despite Flip’s social interface, students are not automatically willing to use the platform to engage in discussions organically.
Student comfort: at the beginning of the course, students may not be completely “spontaneous” (write a paragraph first or record the short clip multiple times to “get it right”) in their reflections because they are nervous that the whole class could see their videos.
Sustainability characteristics:
In the long term, Flip can increasingly become a tool to help teachers and students develop their social and emotional skills, overcoming the traditional curriculum and modernising the education system.
Transferability characteristics:
Being a free online tool available for any device Flip is easily transferable and usable anywhere. Due to data and privacy protection, it can be used with both young learners and adults.
Inclusive characteristics/Innovative elements:
The innovative element of the application is that the platform can capture the human voice and presence to give online teaching and learning a nature feeling.
Flip, in addition to improving student engagement, is a potential tool for self-reflection.