Capturing those Voices & Moments

As we have held our staff meetings this term and used Screencastify and Flipgrid to capture and share teacher's instructions on video, it is amazing how anxious and reluctant teachers are in making a video using their voice to give instructions. Teachers need to get used to using their voice outside the classroom walls. AI and voice recognition is a growing area of technology. Here is a blog post about voice recognition with summaries from a variety of experts.

In our staff meetings we have got teachers to make a Screencastify tutorial on how to use Google Voice Search. They then shared their tutorial on a Flipgrid (embedded below).

Screencastify is an efficient tool that teachers should be harnessing to use in their class. Teachers can quickly make tutorials to support student learning. Students can use Screencastify to record proof of their learning. More junior classes can use it to read and check for fluency.

There are many sites that give teachers ideas on how to use Screencastify. Here is a starter list from Matt Miller of "Ditch That textbook" fame.

Flipgrid is a tool that can capture voices in the classroom quickly and efficiently. It also enables replying. This badge popped up in my email today. Love the gamification aspect as well. This would hook students in.

Flipgrid Frenzy

This term we have used Flipgrid again to collect teacher work in a staff meeting.

I have also used it in classes to further model for teachers the power of this online tool. The younger learners loved being a "vlogger". By using the post-it to prepare their response it certainly meant the videos were better than talking off the cuff.

The older students in year 7&8 were able to navigate the tool very quickly and just like the younger students got distracted by the selfie camouflage area.

We were able to respond to some videos in later classes. This is all part of the "positive, thoughtful, helpful" mantra that we use in blog commenting. Its so good to have this common language across schools and across tools.

So much activity was recorded on our "Would you rather" Flipgrid yesterday that I was awarded this badge. So exciting! It just goes to show that we are never too old for gamification to appeal.

See our Flipgrid below.