Doing a "FLIP" Across the Curriculum

With part of the grant for the creation of my position, teachers got the ability to order several different kinds of technology equipment.  One of those pieces of equipment, a FLIP Camera.  I got one as well...I love it.  I also won one at the Nashville TeachMeet last school year, so now I have one for work and play.  So the question then becomes...how do we use such a great and simple tool in the classroom?  Well here are some ideas for student use. 

Social Studies
1.) Have students portray a President and recreate a famous speech
2.) Act out a time period in history
3.) Use for Mock Trial to record "evidence" at a scene of a crime
4.) Create advertisements for products when teaching Economics
5.) Create advertisement for inventions in history
6.) Interview family members
7.) Create Propaganda Techniques
8.) Film "On The Scene" news clips as if a news reporter from an event in history
9.) Create a movie trailer about an event in history, or even a biography of a person from history
10.)Create a music video for any of the subject matter

Science
1.) Record experiments and then include in a Glog instead of doing the standard lab write up
2.) Create video advertisements for all the Elements on the Periodic table and how they are used in real life
3.) Create a Music video...like these
4.) Interview people in different science careers and bring in for career day activities
5.) Video Science in action - life cycle, hydro-logic cycle, chemical reactions, etc
6.) Create How-To videos explaining the steps in scientific and physic processes


Mathematics
1.) Give to students to take home.  Have the work out and explain a math problem.  Then bring in to school and let the student share with the class
2.) Take a camera out and measure different angles in the school/community for a geometry lesson
3.) Create a "Math in my Life" video journal.  Have students record when they use math in their daily lives and share at the end of the semester.
4.) Create How to videos over mathematics and formulas
5.) Have students record your explanations of math problems in your classroom and then make them available on the web or put them on their flash-drive for them to use for homework.

English
1.) Create a movie trailer for a book they are reading in the class
2.) Create a monologue for a poem from class.  Catch the emotion of a poem.
3.) Allow students to record a speech instead of giving the speech in front of the class if nerves keep them from full potential
4.) Record students doing the My Three Words Campaign
5.) Recreate scenes from a play or short story
6.) Record a skit of dialogue from a section of a book.

Foreign Language
1.) Have students create common words translation videos
2.) Have students record a certain artifact and then translate it on video
3.) Have students go around school/town and translate popular spots, places, etc into the foreign language

ALL SUBJECTS
1.) Create a review video for students to use for exams and show on school news.
2.) Take on Field Trips and share with students via school news
3.) Record classroom discussions
4.) Record your lecture and make available as podcast, for viewing on your website, or on a flash-drive
5.) Record a daily vocabulary word and act out definition.


I am sure that there are several more.  What ideas do you have?  How have you used a FLIP Camera in your subject matter?

Wakerupper

Are you or your students ALWAYS forgetting stuff.  Need a reminder?  More specifically, do you need a reminder phone call?  Wakerupper is a site that takes on the idea of getting a wake up call like you do when staying in a hotel.  With Wakerupper you provide a date, time, phone number, and even a message.  Like all sites where you provide information about yourself, it is a good reminder to read through the Terms of Service.  There is also a mobile website available for those who want reminders while on their cell phone.

The site could be very handy for helping students remember test, projects, meetings, etc, especially in this day and age when students are on their phones more then they are in front of the TV or computer.  You can register for a premium account which sets up prepaid reminders that include voice reminders, recurring calls, and snooze.

15 Ways to use a SMART Slate/Airliner in the Classroom

Perfect practice will make for perfect use. You must practice using the Airliner with and without your students to get used to the functionality. I also highly recommend that you spend a 10-15 minutes a day examining the SMART Notebook software to get a feel for all that it can do.

A wireless Slate/Airliner allows you to be more mobile in your classroom. Take advantage of this mobility by walking around the room and turning individual work into group work and allowing more interaction among students when working on assignments.

1.)Create or Scan the worksheet that students will be working on. Instead of verbally asking students the answer when going over the worksheet, have students use the Airliner to write in the correct answer in the blank spaces. Same goes if filling in a Venn-Diagram or other chart. The same goes for if you are using a Document Camera

2.)Use the Airliner to highlight notes from a PowerPoint Presentation, or underline critical vocabulary within the presentation. Make students more aware of the most important points in a slide.

3.) Use it to circle or highlight an area of a picture or movie that you are showing to the class.

4.)Have a student working on a problem on the Board while having another student use the Airliner to work on another problem.  Great for Math Classes where the projector screen covers part of your board.

5.)Display a homework assignment. When a student has a question you can stand by the student and use the Airliner to explain the process instead of going to the board.

6.)Give the Airliner to a student; have them use it to explain an answer while you help other students.

7.)Instead of having students come up to the board, pass around the Airliner.

8.)Airliners are a great tool to use when visiting interactive websites. Allow students to control what happens.

9.)Use the screen shade function when wanting to show one question at a time or even one answer at a time. Helps alleviate having to make copies when students can use Notebook Paper.

10.)Use the recording feature to record students doing the work step by step and then play it back for further understanding.

11.)Print a screen shot of your desktop and other features. Place that on the Airliner so you have something to look at if looking at the screen is troublesome.

12.)Using a Document Camera, display your book to the class and highlight areas that you want the students to read, focus on, or take notes from. Great for vocabulary that might not be highlighted by the textbook company. Have students highlight words they don’t know within the text as well. This can be done for any book or text as well.
13.)Use the Spotlight feature to block out text and show just a picture (or vise versa). This really helps kids who get distracted easily.

14.)Take True/False or matching worksheets and use an airliner to mark the answer and then discuss why it is true or false. Do a word search or crossword puzzle activity as a class.

15.)Take student work and highlight what was done right and what was done wrong (make sure you don’t show the students name). You can use a document camera, have the document in its Word Processor, or scan it. Have students discuss what could be done better and what was done right.

Kwik Surveys

Kwik Surveys offers user the ability to create "quick" and easy surveys or forms for completely free.  You have an unlimited number of questions, answers, and surveys that you can create.  Visit Kwik Surveys to see all the features that they advertise, saving me from the trouble of reinventing the wheel and typing it all here.  You can view a 2 Question Demo survey to get an idea of how it will look.  No sign up is necessary, just click on the "Create" button and start creating your own survey.  If you want to save your surveys you will need to create an account however.

Kwik Surveys will be a great way to start the school year and discover information about your students and retrieve results without all the paperwork.  I used a lot of surveys in my classes for the purpose of creating discussion in class.  This site would be useful in getting opinions on hot topics to discuss in classes such as Sociology and History. 

Newsy

Newsy is a site dedicated to merging news stories from various sources into one video clip.  They use various news agencies, newspapers, magazines, and websites to create the story thus provide various views on a news story. 

The news is broken down in to popular categories (US, World, Politics, Business, Tech, Health/Science, and Sports.  I like the organization of Newsy for the purpose of covering current events and getting different views.  It can help create discussion because of the different views you get about different stories.  You could easily adapt the stories from Newsy to many of the subjects in schools while providing an unbiased view.