How to Flip Your Classroom - Part 2

After all of your research you should be armed and ready to go with any questions you may be asked.  Don't worry, you won't know all of the answers.  However, make sure you have some resources that you can reference should you need them. 

Now it is time to get others on board.  Start with making a list of pros and cons.   Really be honest with yourself and put everything you can think of down.   I'm hoping that your list will look a lot like my finished list.  It seemed all of the cons on my list were because I, or other adults, would be stretched outside of our comfort zones and/or were forced to think outside of the box.    Almost all of my pros benefited children.   To me, this is when whether to flip or not, became an easy decision.   I began with my school administrator.  Thankfully she was already sold on this idea before I even approached her.   However, once your administrators sees your list of pros and cons, and can see how flipping is best practices and 21st century learning at its finest, they will quickly jump on board too.

Our next stop was the technology department of our school system.  This was not as easy.

If you are planning on flipping, have a good solid conversation with your technology department about your resources and any obstacles you may encounter with technology along the way.   Our technology department was fully on board.  However, I had to work within the allowed resources that we have.   YouTube for posting videos was out.  I was ok with this though because when videos are done playing on YouTube they open up many new videos that could take my little ones into places I didn't want them to go.   I either had to use Gaggle or Eduvision to post my videos through.   I love Gaggle but, it didn't allow my videos to be accessed by others who needed them.  I wanted this to be as easy as possible to access.  So this left me with Eduvision.   Not a bad choice, but it has taken a lot of patience and working out a lot of kinks along the way.   Between the folks at Eduvision and my technology department, we finally got things worked out about November.  Both were really supportive and willing to keep working at it.  I'm grateful for all of their hard work.   Thankfully, Eduvision generates an embed code and allows me to house all of my videos on my school website where parents and students can easily find lessons.  These are all conversations to have with the technology powers that be so that you do not break any Internet Accountability Agreements you may have with your school system.

One last technology issue to work out and know how to do ahead of time, is how to burn DVDs so that they can be played on DVD players as well as gaming devices such as Xbox or Playstation.    If children do not have Internet, they most likely have one of these.   This also took some trial and error.  Try this out on all devices possible before sending any DVDs home with children.   If you need help on this email me, I'll be glad to share how I do it.

You may also want to find you a partner in crime to flip with you.  (This is what I lovingly call one of my teammates).   :)   It always helps to have someone else on board with you working through ideas, problems, and solutions.  However, this may be easier said than done.   Not every teacher is going to think this is a great idea until they see it in the works.  And even then, they may not agree.  It is OK!  Not everyone has to love what you are getting ready to do.  So you may be a pioneer in your school for awhile.  I am very thankful I did not have to go on this adventure alone.   However, if you have to do so, feel free to reach out to those of us that are flipping.  I have found everyone that I have asked questions of has been supportive and extremely helpful.   Flipping teachers stick together!   I think this is credited to the fact that we truly believe in the art of collaboration which is the heart of a flipped classroom.

Now that everyone is on board it is time to decided what and how to flip. 

Stay tuned for Part 3...Deciding What and How to Flip.