FlipCon14 Rehash

It is no secret that this is the conference I have been looking forward to all year. I love the WL conferences, but this is the conference where I feel like my core PLN lives. These are the people that "get" me and how my crazy blonde brain works. It was interesting to hear how many people new to the conference felt the same way. So after meeting people I had only known on Twitter and so many others ready to become facilitators of learning and flipping their class, I wanted to thank everyone for a great conference. I am including links as well as Twitter handles so you can see and follow everyone you find interesting.

But, before I do, I had to share a pic of me and my roomie Crystal Kirch. She is a math teacher (Math, the other foreign language!) who has an awesome blog and I have learned so much from over the years. Funny that we had never met in person, but after 3 years of Twitter, felt like old friends when we were finally together.

Without further ado, here is my rehash of the sessions and ideas that I got from the conference. I encourage others that were at the conference to add their thoughts and ideas as well!

• First Plenary - After thinking about what my favorite session was for this conference, I decided (for the first time ever!) that the plenary given my Molly Schroder (@followMolly) was it! The title was "Living in Beta". The basic idea behind "Living in Beta" is continually trying new ideas, not waiting until you are sure they are perfect. Then as educators we need to model for our students how to recover from a failure or how to share the success. Google is a great example of this idea. They keep trying new products, willing to have users try them, and in some cases love them. However, often the products are abandoned and newer, better products are offered in their place. I loved the graphic of the Google Graveyard where you can mourn (and place flowers) on the Google product that you loved. As a World Language Teacher, the best part was when Molly discussed Global Impact. This is something we are always stressing at our state WL conference, and it was awesome to hear it brought up at a general ed conference. The big question was, "What projects have you participated in that have had a global reach/impact?" (I am paraphrasing here.) Even in the room with so many innovative educators, many seemed to be thinking, "Wow, I need to do that." Hopefully as this message continues to spread, the value of WL in schools will again be on the rise and we will stop seeing the drastic cuts of WL because we are an "elective". After all, if you want a project with a global reach, wouldn't it be best to be able to speak the language? ;)
• Automate your Anytime, Anywhere Learning for Students - YouTube Videos, Google Forms and Scripts - This session was dedicated to using digital tools that we access everyday  more effectively. Some of the information was review for me, but it is good to think about to make sure the best tools are being implemented. One of the things discussed that I had never thought about was using playlists to help meet the needs of specific students. YouTube fell away for me since we couldn't use it at school, but now that things have relaxed and we can access YouTube, using playlists will be a great way for me to share additional information with struggling students, or with students as they are working on their projects. You can create a playlist that you can share with the world, or with just one student. It also is a good way to curate all the great material you find on YouTube. 
• What if, what if, what is - This was another great session given my some of my newer PLN members, Dominique Geocaris (@dgeocaris) and Collin Black (@goteslago). So fun to watch a presentation given by a Science and a Spanish teacher together. For me, the best point they made in their session came at the very beginning- it isn't the video that you show, it is what you do with it. There are so many great resources out there, and rather than dismissing them because we don't immediately see their use for our class, we should take the time to ponder how we can use the video in class. This will help us to continually strive to keep our class fresh  and interesting for our students. They used the example from their session prework, which taught the students how to make a paper airplane. I got so interested, I actually tuned out for a few minutes thinking about how I could use this in class. I was thinking this might be a great way to finally give in and incorporate some math in my classroom. Students could watch the video and then I could have them talk through how to make the paper airplane. It would be a good chance to work on directional words (when flying them too!) and some discussion of angles (which is about all the Geometry I can handle. There was also a good point made about how doing some simple, silly things can make your videos more engaging. For example doing the intro for an earthquake video by shaking the camera - this is something very easily translated with an environment video. Another great idea in our data driven world is not just to poll students at the end of the year about class, but to create and send home a parent survey as well. I often wonder how the parents perceive some of the things we do, and it would be an awesome way to document the success (hopefully) as seen through the eyes of the parents.

One of the things I was fortunate enough to do was to co-moderate the World Language networking session. It was great to see our group at this conference growing. We even had participants from Peru, Morocco, and of course throughout the US. So, if you are looking for some other new flippers in WL, check out these great people on Twitter. @CelTatis, @lainemarsh, @jgaddess (1st time tweeter!), @lynn_shirk, @MrDeLauriRHS, @sraclauser, @dgeocaris, @srhernandez, @yenchungju

I remember the first time I went to this conference in 2010 and there was only me and one other WL teacher. So, although we are a small group in comparison to Math and Science, we have seen some great growth in the flipped class in WL over the past 4 years. 

Of course Aaron Sams and John Bergman did a great job with their plenary, and this year highlighted some great work many of the big names in the flipped class world. Steve Kelly (@bigkxcountry), who is a great friend and Math teacher, Kristin Daniels (@kadaniels) who is a guru at flipped professional development, my wonderful friend and Math teacher Crystal Kirch (@crystalkirch), English teacher April Gudenrath @agudteach), and many more. It is always fascinating to see what is working in other teachers' classrooms.

I was a part of the session for the authors of the Flipping 2.0 book, which if you haven't ordered yet,you should! This was another great chance to field questions from the audience both in person and from the virtual audience with some of my co-authors, Jason Bretzmann (@jbretzmann) awesome History teacher, Cheryl Morris (@guster4lovers) and Andrew Thomasson (thomasson_engl) English teachers extraordinaire and THE gurus of co-flipping. Audrey McLaren (@a_mcsquared) queen of the algebros, and many more. 

Additionally there were some great new apps available for us to check out as well.Verso and TouchCast appear to have some great upgrades from things I have seen so far, and I am anxious to continue to explore them and try to utilize them with my students. They are FREE and available on all platforms so check out all that they can do for you and your video creation.

There were so many other great people and ideas that there just isn't room to put them all here! All I can say is if you don't want to miss all the fun, start planning for FlipCon15 in East Lansing, MI next July and you can be a part of it all.

P.S. - One of the most wonderful, special and patient people I have ever met through the flip class network will be moving on to new adventures. Although selfishly, I want her to stay, I wish all of the luck in the world to Kari Arstrom. Hope she loves her new adventure, but still checks in with us every once in a while. It is hard to imagine the flip class world without her! Love you Kari!

True Confessions

As I often do before I present at a conference, I am sitting in my hotel room and gathering my thoughts. I am here outside of Pittsburgh, at the Flipped Class Conference, and trying to decide what questions I want to try to find the answers to in my own classroom. I feel like I have really been neglecting my personal reflections and really want to take this time to recommit to my original ideas and goals from my first Flipped Class Conference 4 years ago:

• I want my students to increase their fluency in class.
• I want students to WANT to learn not just the language, but more about the people and culture of the world. 
• I want to facilitate my students' learning, not dictate it.
• I want to love my job every day, no matter what other things are going on in my school.

In so many ways, these four things sound so simple, and yet they are often difficult to achieve. I have fallen into the trap of tweaking minimally and not really trying to continually improve my curriculum to adapt to the needs of my students. I work hard for my students, always have, always will. However, I think I need to turn the focus back on their thoughts and ideas. How can I continue to move to the more student centered classroom? How can I help them to love learning and build on their abilities and interests to keep them learning beyond the requirements?

I don't have the answers to these questions.....which is ok. But, I think I haven't been continuing to search for them, which is not ok. 

I am very fortunate to have such a great PLN to turn to for advice and encouragement and so many of them are here with me at this conference. I need to focus not just on the social side of this conference, but try to look at the sessions and speakers through the eyes of the teacher new to flipping trying to find the path that will help students achieve success.

I want to move to more creative assignments, inspired by me, but created by my students. Shall I give more choice boards to show the students their capabilities and help them understand how to express their knowledge on their own? Should I reject all grammar practice and have students instead approach everything from a cultural perspective? Should I model some of my colleagues and find the right way to have online portfolios and true student interaction online?

I sit here tonight full of questions that I have no answers to. It is the search for the answers that helps me see things from my students' eyes and helps me be a better teacher. Join me on this journey.

FlipCon 2013 - The keynotes, the tech and the Flipped Out!!

The Flipped Class conference in Stillwater, OK has come and gone, and even though I was only able to be a virtual attendee, there were many highlights that I wanted to share.

The keynote by Jon Bergman and Aaron Sams was as wonderful as always. They never cease to help me get excited about flipping my class all over again! I would like to be able to find someone that I could work with that I could have that type of relationship...the ying to my yang so to speak. The biggest thing that resonated with me from their keynote was not something new, but something I think that we as teachers need to be reminded of from time to time. The key to teaching is relationships. Open, trusting relationships are crucial to student success and great classroom experiences.

However, I even though I have found that although the flipped class gives me more opportunities to establish relationships with my students, I think teachers can do more. I have gotten so much more buy-in from my students because I went to their game/concert/play. Not to mention it is a great time to see parents (the ones that never come to conferences, but never miss a game) and say something positive about their student. Students know that we work hard and appreciate that we take the time to be a part of their lives outside of the classroom. My students love to meet my young twins, who inevitably are with me at the various games.

The rest of the post is about my two favorite sessions, which are all about new tech tools that I can actually USE in my class.

Marc Seigel's session about Google tools for the flipped classroom was just what I was looking for. We have been using Google Docs at my school, but the students are still resisting it and I think the main reason is because we as teachers haven't been proactive about harnessing the power of Gdocs. Marc's session was full of great elements of Google that will be such time savers, they are worth putting in the time to figure them out. This is not a full list, and I haven't played with them all yet, but the ones I really keyed in on are:

• Formmule - With this, I can grade and send students feedback quickly via email
• MoveNote - This is an app that you can add to your Google Drive (go to Settings, manage apps, then scroll until you see it and add it) that will enable you to use your webcam to leave a video recording of feedback for an assignment. I thought this might be especially helpful with students that are having pronunciation issues so that they could see your mouth move as you pronounce the words.
• VoiceNote - Also an app that you can add to your Google Drive that will enable you to leave voice comments on a document or other assignment. The suggestion was made to take a screenshot of the document and make your comments so students could really understand the feedback, (and not just throw it in the trash.)

The best part for me was that Marc explained (both in the session and then a little more through a Twitter chat) how to create folders with my Gdocs for classes and then for each student. After creating them, I can share the student's folder with them and that is where they can put their completed assignments. One of my goals this year is to use less paper and to keep online portfolios of student work. Marc also suggested that the student's folder could also be shared with the parent, so they could see and/or hear the feedback for all of the assignments. This is a great idea and can minimize some of those parent phone calls, but I think it might be a little tricky for me since I really want to try to give as much of the feedback in Spanish as possible. ;)

Ideally, we as a department can use these online portfolios to keep track of each student's progress throughout their time in the language program. I think it would be a great if we could do it across the school as well. In my school, there is so much turnover, that being able to access student work from previous teachers could be a real asset to the new teachers when they are trying to determine strengths and weaknesses of students.

Jason Bretzman and Cory Peppler also presented about technology, but different, non-Google tools. Again, some of these are new to me as well, so I have not had the chance to play with them all.

• Symbaloo - This is a cool curation tool. Although I have not used this one, I have used others. I think that the look of this would be very appealing to students. I could see them using this for 20% projects as a place to share all their links, or even a resource throughout the school year for when they find websites that are great for Spanish information.
• Piktochart - A easy way to be able to create your own, or have student created infographics.
• Xtranormal - This is a way to create cute little characters that will say whatever you want. I think this would be an interesting way to deliver conversation topics or topics for brainstorming.
• Wordsift - This is another word visualization tool.
• YUDU - This is an online publishing tool. I am searching for ways to minimize paper so I am very interested in this. You can also include video and sound, so it would be awesome for Spanish class. I would love to create my own e-book for my classes and get rid of packets and papers forever. Just not sure if I can truly do it without being 1:1.

There were so many sessions, and honestly, since I was attending virtually, I did quite a bit of moving back and forth to try to gain as much new information as I could from many of them. I would love to see flipped PD as presented by Kristin Daniels, but I don't know if my admin is ready for that. I will bring it up and see! I am always interested in the choice activities presented by Ellen Dill, and love incorporating choice into all of my units. I want to watch the co-flip session presented by Cheryl Morris and Andrew Thomasson again before I make any real comments. I was so intrigued, that I didn't write anything down, I just listened and tried to absorb. Sound issues prevented me from hearing the session by Steve Kelly and Zach Cresswell, but we reconnected via Twitter and maybe working on a Math/Spanish unit together.....how awesome is that.

On one more note, Ramsay Musallam, who gave the second keynote of the conference was truly fantastic. He has an interesting way of looking at things that, even though familiar, makes you reconsider things that you thought you knew. He used the movie "The Karate Kid" to make connections with his Explore-Flip-Apply method. But I think that it was the clip from his favorite comedian that really summed up so much about the flipped class- "Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he will never go hungry. Give a man the tools and leave him alone, and eventually he will figure it out." Focus on making the students find the information and really think about what they need to know before you give them all of the information. I am still pondering how to make this work in my Spanish class, but I really like it.

If you are interested in any of this information or any of the presenters, I made as many clickable with their info as I could, or you can find them all on Twitter. Join our PLN at the #flipclass Twitter chat at 8EST on Mondays.

**Start thinking about the Flipped Class Conference 2014 at Mars High School near Pittsburg, PA. I know that I will be there!

Flipped Conference Day 2 - TedEd and Bergman and Sams Plenary

Today was the final day of the Flipped Class Conference, and I approached it with excitement and nervousness. The day began with my recording for TedEd. It was cool to see how they record everything and be a part of that process. Unfortunately they aren't ready to do any TedEd videos with foreign language, but they wanted to have the recording on file for when they are ready. However, as with all things, I gained some valuable ideas for the creation of my new videos. I am going to create "stories" to demonstrate my grammar concepts. I think it is going to be time intensive, but I think that the payoff will be great. I am going to start posting my new videos to Sofia, which is a great site that I discovered through Crystal Kirch and they were sponsors of the Flipped Class Conference. They are doing some great things on their site, and although the language offerings are thin now, I am hoping that with all the new language flippers they will grow.

The plenary given by Jon Bergman and Aaron Sams was, of course, the highlight of the day. They had so many great points, and I know that there will be so many comments out their about their presentation. In my opinion, there are two things that really stood out about their presentation. First, their message (which they say frequently) which is that their is no "right" way to incorporate the flip in the classroom. Teachers need to think about their students, curriculum, teaching styles and environment and decide how the flipped classroom best fits their needs. The flip is NOT a cure for all of the issues in education today, but it is a move in the right direction. The best way they showed this was the empty slide....it didn't have a step-by-step for putting the flip in a classroom....a powerful "lack" of a slide.

The second was when they talked about the Flipped Class 101. I think this is the most important thing for new flippers to remember. When you start, it is ok to have easy, basic videos. It is ok to use some worksheets while you are figuring out to do with all the new class time. What is not ok is to stop there. Teachers have to continue to improve not only the videos, but the types of assignments and assessments that you give your students. Making a big change like a flip is hard, and you aren't going to perfect it in one year. The only thought I have to add is for new flippers to write their story. Whether it be a public blog or a private notebook. Keep track of what you are doing, what works, and all those "next year, I am doing it this way" ideas. We continue to expect more from our students, and we need to continue to expect more from ourselves.

With that said, I am ready to accept the challenge of Flipped Class 201! Who's with me?

Flipped Class Conference Day 1 Sessions -Moodle and Research

I was able to go to two sessions on Tuesday, and they were both fantastic! Joe Liaw did a presentation on Moodle and Ellen Dill on her research with the flipped class in her French Classes.

Moodle is a great resource for organizing videos, resources and assignments as well as an online assessing tool. In the past, I have always felt that Moodle was a resource for Math and Science teachers because of the ease of creating online testing for their content area. Before attending the conference I was already learning more about Moodle and wondering if it was a viable solution for the language class too.

While listening to Joe's presentation, I am convinced that Moodle is the direction that I am moving in for next year. I want to not only have a place to house my videos and documents, but give the students an opportunity to take practice quizzes and even do some basic checks for understanding and  comprehension in an online format. I also want to give students the opportunity to complete more practice assignments online (without paper and terrible handwriting!). Additionally, Moodle has the capability to do online blogging and I really want to get students writing everyday. I am so glad that I have Joe as a resource to ask questions about Moodle when I need it. Joe has also shared some Moodle resources just for language teachers which I will post about after the conference.

For my final session I went to see Ellen Dill. I was very interested to see the research that she was able to compile about the success of the flipped classroom. I have so many people ask me about "proving" that my students are more successful and because I restructured my curriculum as well as moving to the flip, I really can't do that. Ellen had some great ideas and great feedback from her students. It was awesome to see the graphs and numbers that proved what I already know....flipping the language classroom works!

The best part of the conference is not really the sessions, but being able to network with the other flippers and future flippers. If there is one thing I have learned as a language flipper is that I need to be ready to look outside my content area to find ideas and nuggets of information because there aren't so many of us out there (or here in Chicago). However I will say that the language flippers and future flippers that I have met here have tons of ideas and enthusiasm! Can't wait for tomorrow!

Flipped Conference 2012 - Keynote thoughts

Early start today with presenter meeting at 8:15! Although I was really curious about Brian Bennett's keynote today, I have to admit it was hard to concentrate because I was getting nervous about my own presentation. The Flipped Conference 2011 didn't have any foreign language speakers, so I really wanted to be able to give all the foreign language teachers great tools and inspiration to start their flipped journey. Brian's keynote made some great points, some which are difficult for we, as teachers to accept.

For example, he addressed students that finish their required work for his class and then did work for other classes. I know that this is an issue that many of us struggle with. I agree with him that if a student has finished their work, they should be able to work on something from another class. His comparison was "if you, as an adult finished creating a presentation ahead of the deadline, would you continue to work on it?" When you think about it that way, it seems cruel not to allow students to do something else when they finished. The only question I have is, " How will administration respond to students doing math in my Spanish class? " So far, my administration hasn't brought it up, but it might raise eyebrows if I was observed and students were doing other homework. (Honestly, it doesn't happen too often in my class.)

Brian also had some interesting ways of choosing groups. He had a grid with words and students picked the words they thought went together based on the word Pluto. Science people chose "Mars, Mercury, Venus", I picked "Mickey, Minnie and Donald". (Clearly I have been hanging out with the kids too long!) But, it was a cool new idea for choosing groups.

He also discussed assessments and giving choices to students when taking assessments. He has created "choice boxes" to help students pick projects, but students can pick their own way of demonstrating knowledge. This is something that I am doing for unit assessments, but I wonder if it could work for the Benchmark Assessments (Vocab and grammar) as well.

That is what I love about this conference and my flipped PLN (personal learning network). Everyone has great nuggets of information no matter what your content area. All you have to do is stay open to the possibilities.

Flipped class conference day 1

Today was all about learning to use SnagIt and Camtasia. Camtasia has a new version, which has some cool new features, but is going to involve some practice. I worked with Ryan Eash of TechSmith. He is a the "man" behind all of the tutorials for Camtasia, and he definately knows his stuff.

It was an intense, busy day. I am looking forward to spending more time with the computer when I get home to learn all of the new upgrades. The one that I am especially fascinted with is the Quizzing feature. In Camtasia 7, I couldn't get it to work, but in Cam8, as long as I post to Screencast these will work. I really want to incorporate more online comprehension checks to cut down on "paper" work that my students do. I am committed to moving to PBL (Project Based Learning) and I need more class time to make it work. (Funny, huh? No matter how much time there is in class, it never seems to be enough.)

Sadly, I didn't connect with any foreign language teachers until the reception at MentorMob after the conference. I was able to finally meet Ellen Dill, who is a middle school French teacher that is also presenting at the conference.

Going to the Cubs/Sox game was a great end to the day...I love extending my PLN over baseball and brats! Can't wait for tomorrow.

Flipped Class Conference and TedEd

It is almost time for the Flipped Class Conference, and I know it has been a while since I have posted, but I have been frantically trying to perfect my presentation and get ready. (I also took about a week off from any talk of school - what a treat!) I have submitted a lesson for TedEd, and am interested to see how they view my submission. If you haven't checked out their new site, do it now! My lesson was on por vs. para and it would be great to see some foreign language videos included in their library, so even if mine isn't chosen, I hope they appear soon.

I have been continuing to learn over the summer, and encourage you all to do the same. I attended a great webinar yesterday hosted by Crystal Kirch, a great math teacher in California. Don't discount information based on content area, you never know what will spark an idea for your classroom. She gave me some inspiration to finish my presentation for Chicago (again!) I joined some new flip groups in Edmodo (Flip Share - 0ywjwj and Flipping your Classroom - x8hx3w).
On that note, hopefully many of you are attending the conference; if not in person, then virtually. From what I hear, there will be as many virtual attendees as attendees in person. Please let me know if there are any specific questions you have that I can address. Email me, post to the blog, or I am on Twitter at @SraWitten.

I am still brainstorming all my ideas to incorporate PBL in the classroom next year and have a long post coming about those once I get them organized. Thanks to the PBL group in Edmodo for helping me work through some of my questions about this new idea. I am going to increase the time in the target language next year and I know this is a great way to do it!

I have so much more that I want to add to the blog and have more plans for videos about flipping, some student feedback from this year, and my post-conference notes from Chicago. More to come after the conference next week!

p.s. - I can't believe I am going to hit 5000 views to the blog this week! Thanks to all of you that read!

Steps for a successful flipped class

With the influx of new tools and press for the flipped classroom, there is so much information both good and bad about the flipped classroom. I find myself comparing all of the criticism of the flipped classroom to the Harry Potter books when they came out. So many people and various groups complained about the books, but were basing their opinions on what they had heard about ...they had never actually read the book. It is impossible to judge the flipped classroom by reading an article or a few blog posts. In my opinion, these are the steps a teacher does when flipping a class, in order of importance!

1. Research - Do all you can to find out about flipped classrooms. Think outside the box. Don't just rely on looking in your content area. You never know where you are going to find good ideas.
2. Train - Go to the Flipped Class Conference, find webinars, find someone flipping in your area.
3. Plan - Plan how you want students to complete assigned work. Decide if you are looking at a basic flipped structure, or if you are going to go for a mastery system.
4. Create Objectives - Create objectives for every unit of study, making sure they meet the standards. Make sure that they are measurable and achieve the overall goal of your class. Constantly ask yourself, "What do they need to know at the end of the unit, semester, class."
5. Evaluate your assignments -  Make sure that every assignment you give is meaningful, thought-provoking, and on target with your objectives. Make sure assignments have a tie-in to the bigger picture and there are higher level thinking questions. Expect kids to make connections. 
6. Evaluate your assessments - Create good assessments with a variety of types of assessing. Use written, spoken and presentational assessments. The best advice for an assessment? Make sure your students can't put your question in a search engine and immediately get the right answer.
7. Plan - With every unit, plan a combination of activities that will reach a variety of learning styles. Have a combination of group and solo work. Every unit should give students a chance to
8. Videos - Create videos of your lectures that are meaningful and SHORT. Remember that students on average will take 3-4 times as long to watch the video as it is long. Students will check out if the video is too long, just like they check out in class. apply what they have learned in a "real" situation.
9. Technology - Use technology, but make use it appropriately for your class. There are many great tools out there, but not all of them are effective classroom tools. Find 2 or 3 you like and stick with them.Allow students to use technology in class. Determine "acceptable use" practices and consequences in advance. Have a back-up plan for technology problems.
10. Set class policies - Decide if students must watch videos outside of class and how you will check to ensure that they do. Set collaboration parameters. (i.e. - how big of a group can work together). Determine where groups can work. (Can students only be in the classroom, can they work in the hall?)

I wish I could say I did all of these before I started, but I did do most of them. Notice that making videos is far down the list, and planning and evaluating are on the list twice. If these steps (even most of them) are done by the teacher, the results are amazing. Students are more engaged, take more responsibility for their learning, and (on the whole) have a better grasp of the information presented. I want to meet the educator that can argue with that!

Flipped Class Conference

I am so excited! I just found out that I will be a presenter at the Flipped Class Conference in Chicago this summer!!! If you are interested in learning more abouht the flip, the conference is this June 18th-20th. Space is filling up fast so check out the link http://flipped-learning.com/ .

I am also going to have a talk with the superintendant of my school to talk to him about holding a flipped classroom "class" for my district, so now I am so pumped to have that meeting!

I have some great stuff going on in my class and I will be posting this weekend! I love hearing from people following the blog, so keep the communication coming!