The November issue of the monthly ESA Library newsletter.

1. Flipping the Classroom
Library
News
NOV 2013
NEWSLETTER
Image from Edudemic
This month: A Focus on Flipping the Classroom
What is Flipped Learning?
Flipped Learning occurs when direct
instruction is moved from the
group teaching space to the
individual learning environment.
Class time is then used for higher
order, active problem solving by
students and one-to-one or small
group interactions with the
teacher. Educators are embracing
Flipped Learning in elementary and
secondary schools for all subjects.
The above statement comes directly from
The Flipped Learning Network, begun by
Flipping the Classr
educators Jon Bergmann and Aaron
Sams, the generally accepted founders
of the flipped classroom model. They
embarked upon this road when they
found themselves teaching together at a
rural school... a school where students
missed a lot of class time on account of
lengthy travel times back and forth to
school, or on account of sports and
other school activities. Sound familiar?
If you are interested in learning more
about what’s involved in flipping your
classroom, The Flipped Learning
Network is the place to start. There are
regularly scheduled free webinars
designed to help teachers find their
comfort level to support initial attempts
to flip their classroom.
There are also a number of subject
specific Education Ning’s - basically
support groups for teachers. Join one
and engage in the conversation. There is
one specifically for first time flippers.
The Soup is On!
ESA’s SEEDS Me to We group will host
their first Great Soup Community Lunch of
the year on Mon Nov 11th. Mark your
calendars. For just $6 per person, we
provide soups, salads, homemade breads
and goodies. All proceeds go to charity.
If you’d like to contribute a food item, fill
out the Google Form by Nov 6th.
The technological secret to successfully flipping your classroom is the ability to create “vodcasts”...
teacher created instructional videos. While the wealth of materials available out there on the web
means that we, as teachers, need not always reinvent the wheel, there will be times when highly
customised vodcasts are preferred. The Flipped Classroom website is dedicated to teaching
teachers how to screencast to support individual efforts to flip the classroom
Image Source: Teachercast Podcasting Network

2. Happy Hallowe’en
at ESA!
Other News...
Tidbits that hopefully
will interest someone...
Mashable
Indie news site “dedicated to covering
digital culture, social media and
technology.” There is always something
interesting to be found at Mashable.
Teachercast.net
Teachercast.net is the place for teachers
to help other teachers. Of particular
interest are the App Reviews,
Educational Videos and the Online
Video Tutorials.
File Sharing
Flipping your classroom may involve
your wanting to share files with students.
Often files are too large to be handled by
mail servers. Two services which will allow
you to send files up to 2GB in size are Just
Beam It and We Transfer.
Richard Byrne, of FreeTech4Teachers
has written brief articles about each. Access
them here: Just Beam It or We Transfer.
Screencasting
Mashable (see yellow sidebar) has a
great reference site discussing 12
screencasting tools for creating video
tutorials.
Wikipedia also hosts a webpage
providing comparisons of a variety of
screencasting software/applications.
Screencast.com seems to be generally
recognised as the screencasting tool of
choice. Read more at the Committed Sardine
Blog.
Science 360
Some courses tend to lend themselves
more easily to flipping. Science and
Geography are two which come readily to
mind, since there is a wealth of great video
(and other) resources already out there.
With that in mind, take a look at Science
360. Hosted by the National Science
Foundation, Science 360 is searchable by
topic or by series. Featured topics include
sustainability and climate change.
Bulb: Create, Browse, Share
Educational Media
Bulb is a new service which allows you
to create collections of various media. These
collections could easily be on specific topics
you wish to teach, or skills you wish to
develop.
One beauty of Bulb is that students do
not need to create accounts to view your
offerings. Further, collections may be shared
via various social media forums.
VideoNot.es
Expecting your students to watch videos
on their own? Need them to take notes while
they’re watching?
Videonot.es is the answer. Watch your
YouTube video on the left side of the screen,
while typing notes on the notepad which
appears on the right hand side of the screen.
Best of all, VideoNot.es integrates with
Google Drive. As we bring students on
board with the Google Apps for Education
this will allow for sharing of notes, and
questions, back and forth.
This will further allow students to
collaborate and teachers to tailor lessons/
discussions based on the observations and/or
questions students have referenced in the
notes made while viewing. Timely at it’s best!
21st Century Fluency Project
Co-founded by educator Ian Jukes, the
purpose of the 21st Century Fluency
Project is to “develop exceptional
resources to assist in transforming
learning to be relevant to life in the 21st
Century. If nothing else, sign up to
receive the Committed Sardine Blog,
and check out their recommendations
for the 10 Best Web Tools for Flipped
Classrooms.
Internet@Schools Magazine
Available online, providing free access
to both current and archived editions,
Internet@Schools provides interesting
article about EdTech Issues, and
product reviews of a variety of free
(and paid) tools which teachers might
find os use in their classroom. Mind,
you can see it for free because of the
advertising on the site. Look past the
ads and there are some gems every
once in a while.
App of the Week
Are you interested in a weekly e-mail
highlighting an App which has interest
from an educational perspective? Last
month’s feature App’s are archived on
the ESA Library EduBlog.
If you are interested in being on the
receiving end of the weekly e-mail,
and/or interested in keeping up with
what else is going on in the Library,
sign up here.
Happy App’ing.