1. Reading response goes digital.

After your class reads an article, chapter or book have them respond to a question about their reading. Take the conversation further by having students comment on each other’s responses.

2. 30-second book talk challenge.

Have your students share about their favorite book in 30 seconds or less. Check out this example and blog post.

3. Debate about a topic. 

Add a Flip topic to the share section of this “Great Debate” HyperDoc by Rayna Freedman to get your students debating.

4. Celebrate The Global Read Aloud all year long.

The Global Read Aloud is a set 6 week period that spans from early October through mid-November and teachers all over the globe read one book and connect with other classrooms all over the world. With a tool like Flip, you can connect with educators all over the world anytime and share as you read a novel together.

5. Reboot your standard biography report.

Our friend Sean Fahey had the fabulous idea to use Nadine Gilkison’s amazing Biography Inquiry HyperDoc to teach students all about biographies. Finally, he had students dress up as the person they were researching and record a short presentation video.

6. Record an ongoing story.

Claudio Zavala Jr. suggests having students record an ongoing story through Flip. Have one student think of a title then the next record a 30-second beginning the next builds on that and so on and so forth. What a fun way to get the whole class involved in and create a unique story to share!

7. Create a virtual vocabulary word wall.

When working on a unit have your students record a video describing the meaning of important vocabulary words. They can hold up a card in their selfie video with the word written on it so the words are easily accessed by other students.

8. Speaking skills assessment.

With Flip you can provide written feedback to students and give them a rubric score for performance and ideas. You can even customize the rubric (how-to screencast). The PVLEGS framework includes a great rubric to use when assessing students speaking skills in Flip.

Click below to listen to The juice that makes Flip even better on the Ditch That Textbook podcast!

9. Show what you know!

Choice and voice are so important for getting students to share their knowledge with us. What better way to do that then with the new Flip camera! The camera gives students the ability to add more than ever to their videos giving them the option to add:

• Text boxes
• Filters
• Inking and whiteboard animation
• Live recording and more!

10. Reflect on a lesson or unit.

It seems simple but having your students reflect on a lesson is great feedback for us as teachers. How did it go? What changes would you make? What was your favorite part? Take a look at their responses for planning next year.

11. Exit tickets get a makeover.

Exit tickets are a great way to get some feedback from your students at the end of the day. Post the question “What did you learn today?” or better yet ask your students “What did you create today?” for the students to answer before leaving class.

12. Number talks.

Have students explain their thinking and critique the reasoning of others as they work through a math problem. Looking for more ideas for using Flip in math? Be sure to check out Sean Fahey’s fantastic post 13 ways to enhance math lessons with Flip.

13. Activate prior knowledge on a topic.

High school math teacher, Mark Tobin recommended simply asking the students to activate their knowledge on a topic before teaching it. He said he had tremendous success by just using that strategy. Why not take it a step further and have your students record a Flip video sharing their background knowledge on a topic before you begin? Students could then reply to their original video after the unit sharing everything they learned.

14. Three Act Math.

A brilliant mathematical teaching strategy developed by Dan Meyer is Three Act Math. Three Act Math is a series of tasks consisting of three distinct parts taking the learner through deep mathematical thinking. This strategy gives learners lots of opportunities to reflect on their mathematical understanding.

Have your students record a Flip video after each act replying to the previous video to share their reflections as they go through the acts to document their learning.

15. Brainstorming in the Engineering Design Process.

Students can jump very quickly to planning or even building before they get out their ideas in a brainstorming session. Slow them down a bit and capture their thinking as they throw out their ideas on Flip. Add a Flip to the brainstorm portion of this Intro to Engineering Design Process HyperDoc.

16. Computer science share out.

After creating a project in a coding program such as Scratch students can explain their project, ideas for improving, what issues they came across and how they debugged their program. Students can add a link to their project when they respond to the grid so the teacher or another student can view their program while listening as the student explains.

17. Do a little debugging. 

When we refer to debugging we are usually talking about finding and fixing errors in a computer program. However, my (then) six-year-old son found and fixed his errors when reading and happily exclaimed that he had just debugged. After completing a math task, reading a passage, working through the engineering design process or when creating a computer program students can use Flip to reflect on the process identifying their errors and sharing how they fixed them.

18. Map out historical landmarks.

In California, our fourth-grade curriculum is famous for the Mission reports the kids are expected to do each year. Of course, students also do state reports and various other projects for social studies. What if instead of, or in addition to a fun alternative to a report, students also share what they know in a Flip AR video? Then print that QR code link to the video and add it to the map? Geography, history and oral reports all rolled into one.

19. Take a Flip Virtual Field Trip.

Flip has paired up with some amazing organizations to take your students places they could never go before! Click on the images below for TONS of ready-to-use Flip virtual field trips.

20. End of year (semester) reflection.

What better way to say goodbye than to have your students record a video reflecting on their learning over the course of your class? (I’m pretty sure many of these would require a box of tissues for those tear-jerker posts!)

21. Advice to next year’s class.  

How cool is it to have a Flip topic full of advice videos from your current students to show next year’s class? Check out this End of Year Reflection HyperDoc and link a Flip in the share section.

22. Put a spin on the student of the week.

Have each student record a video sharing why that student of the week is special. Students will enjoy watching video messages from their classmates sharing why they are valued members of their classroom community.

23. Welcome back to school Flip style.

Have all staff record a welcome back message for your student at the beginning of the year.

Ask a local (or national) celebrity to join in and give a shout out to your students. Also check out Kristin Merrill‘s post 16 ways to use Flip on the first day of school” here.

24. Appreciation/Thank you card.

After a field trip, on your admin’s birthday or during teacher or classified staff appreciation week have your class record their own video thank you cards.

25. Make learning come alive with Flip AR!

Use the new Flip AR feature and add QR codes linking Flip videos to your students’ work. Have families scan the code and watch as your students “pop-out” into the real world! See Randall Sampson’s idea for using FlipAR below.

26. Encouragement from home.

Scott Titmas has families record videos for their children to provide encouragement from home. Don’t just wait for testing time to have your families record videos. The beginning of the year, at parent conferences, or a send-off to the next grade are all ways to get families involved in encouraging and supporting their kids.

27. Create a virtual library of tech tips and tricks.

How many times have you had something go wrong with the Chromebook or iPad and you KNOW you have fixed it before but you just can’t remember how you did it? Have your school tech squad or group of tech-savvy students create videos with tech tips and tricks on a Flip topic to share with the rest of the school. You can have a topic for Chromebook troubleshooting, a topic for iPad tips and even a whole topic for getting started with commonly used apps and programs.

28. Flip in Physical Education.

Using proper form when exercising is important. Students can record a video of the proper way to do a jumping jack, lunge, stretch, lift weights or kick a ball. As a soccer coach having a short video to remind me and my team how to perform the proper moves is a valuable resource.

29. Host a Flipgrid film festival.

Short films can be incredible teaching tools and are just plain fun to watch. Pixar has even paired up with Khan Academy to create Pixar in a Box which is a behind the scenes look at how Pixar artists do their jobs.

30. Make some FlipPals!

An incredible idea from Bonnie McClelland, FlipPals connects classrooms across the globe creating virtual pen pals. You can take advantage of FlipPals using Flipgrid One. However, if one of the FlipPals teachers has Flip classroom then you can become CoPilots on the same grid giving both teachers access to the educator dashboard.