Flipping the Class

Now that you have the technology you’ll need to perform a flip, you need to decide how to best distribute your podcasts and direct the class time.  Some people, like myself, opt for a flipped-mastery model.  Not everyone adopts the mastery learning philosophy, which is totally fine.  Many classes use only flipped instruction and “traditional” class management.

Writing the Unit Content

The first, and biggest thing, is that you need to write the unit before you begin recording.  Movie producers don’t go into filming without a solid plan in place…which is why [most] movies are well-produced.  Sit down with your content and decide the following things:

1. What do students really need to know?
2. What can be used as supplemental activities?
3. Is podcasting the best way to teach all of the ideas in this unit?

Answering each of these questions will help you write an engaging, meaningful unit.  It is not as easy as taking your old lecture notes and recording them for the students.  The podcasts need to be to the point and idea specific.  You can’t ramble in podcasts, or else you’ll lose your audience.  A good recommendation is one discrete idea per video…less than 15 minutes no matter what.  Kids can’t track much longer than that without direct prompting, so don’t ask them to by recording 30-minute dissertations on adding fractions.

Content Distribution

There are a lot of ways to distribute your content to students.  A lot of what you choose depends on how visible you would like it to be.  Some teachers are fine with it being public on the web, while others would rather have their content private, accessible to students or others connected to the school.

1. YouTube – Pros: Probably the easiest of any to get started, but not the easiest to maintain.  YouTube allows for easy distribution, but initial time limits can be challenging to cope with.  Cons: Initial user accounts have a 15-minute limit which then gets bumped up as you build your video library.  Also, YouTube doesn’t allow for downloads, nor does it provide an RSS feed for the iTunes store.
2. Screencast.com – Pros: Free account for new users with 2GB of storage and 2GB of monthly streaming bandwidth allowed.  It also provides an RSS feed so you can submit your library to be distributed through iTunes.  You can also organize by folders to share some content, but keeping other content private.  Cons: If you have a large viewership or a large library, sometimes 2GB isn’t enough.  A paid account is $100/yr and upgrades to 200GB monthly bandwidth and 25GB storage space.  Also, the RSS feed is only for the 15 or 16 most recent uploads, so iTunes only holds the most recent items rather than the entire library.
3. Vimeo – Pros: HD video, no upload length limits, and no bandwidth limits.  Cons: You can only upload 500MB/week.  If you have a heavy week of posting, you might not be allowed to post your content.  There are also issues with the RSS feed to iTunes, so posting in the store can be touchy.

Those are the three I am most comfortable with.  The key is to pick one and stick with it…even if you hate it.  You can always switch in between school years (which can be time consuming, but it is better than trying to switch mid-year and having students confused about where your content is) and move on from there.