How to use Flipgrid

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I have spoken before of Flipgrid as a way to engage our students and empower their voice so that they can practise speaking in an environment that is right for them.  You can read about that here. 



However, Flipgrid also offers you, the teacher, a brilliant way to guide your students and provide them with a resource that they can return to as often as they wish to listen to your wise words and watch your explanations, of course.  By leveraging the many features of this  remarkable tool you really can provide clear, simple instructions for your students and help them understand new concepts, or revisit old ones in readiness for the next stage. 

Here is a short video I made for some of my students on Le Passé Composé. I make no apologies for its shortcomings as the video was put together rather hastily at the start of lockdown when I was not so adept and skilled at making these videos.  




Creating a video such as this is intuitive and there are many options that provide the opportunities to create quite distinctive videos.  For example:

  1. Change the background to create a whiteboard which can be lined, dotted or blank, coloured or white.
  2. Change the font to focus attention
  3. A variety of effects and frames
  4. Insert a picture - perhaps a town scene for description
  5. Add some words as headings or to help your explanations
  6. Split the screen so that your face can be seen whilst you annotate the board (and yes, if you have digital inking you can draw).
In addition, some very useful keys that I find invaluable are the undo and redo keys which allow you to record and add notes quite seamlessly.   You can record in short sections, undo what you do not like and have another go.  It is that easy.

Here's a video I have created to explain how to make a Flipgrid Short.

As with all technological tools I encourage you to just have a go and record some short videos modelling good practice. Your students will be grateful for the opportunity to learn at their own pace and they may even be tempted to create their own for their classmates or for you.

Let me know how you get on in the comments box below. 


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