Flippin' the script on Education

Creative title right!?

Today we were privy to the inter workings of the mind of Jonathan Thomas-Palmer, a fellow Wolverine and the founder of FlippingPhysics. "Flipping" a classroom is something that I had never heard of until one of my students (I am currently student teaching at a 1,200 student high school outside of Ann Arbor) mentioned that their Calculus class (I think) is a flipped classroom. I had to stop the student and ask them, "Hey! What does that mean?" And I was then that old person in the room who didn't know why something was funny or how to use the surround sound in the room (Yes, that happened like three weeks ago when my mentor was absent. Darned hardware had too many knobs!)

Let's. Move. On.

The concept of flipping a classroom is one that I think is really interesting that I would like to learn more about specifically how it can be used in a French classroom. Vanderbilt University provides a fantastic definition and concept summary of classroom flipping if you are not familiar with the idea. Essentially, students get the traditional "lecture" type information at home by watching a video and then spend class time doing the homework, labs, etc.

After I got home from my 13 hour day I googled "Flipped Classroom, French" and got quite a few results. Many teachers that are flipping their classrooms are writing blogs about it in addition to the hours and hours they probably spend making videos and other nifty stuff for their students. Mme Burton's blog can be found here.  She even has a video on the home page to parents so they can learn a little bit about their child's classroom.

Flippin' French 

I think the main way to flip a French classroom would be to use the videos to teach grammar, vocabulary, and culture and use class time for interpersonal dialogues and group discussions about topics in addition to students asking questions of course. My only questions are: Will students actually watch the videos? Will they complete notes and be prepared for class? At what point in a student's education does the student take responsibility for their learning?

Flipping a classroom is handing the responsibility of learning to the student-which is why I sort of think flipping a classroom is best for juniors and seniors or lower grade students that are on the fast track to an early diploma or something. I also think that sometimes students just don't care and you will have those students who will not do the homework regardless of what it is.

However, that being said- I love the idea. <3

Technology^50

Part 1
So thus far in the semester we have learned from about a million technology related things that we could use in our classrooms but I can't help but ask myself, "Why is this technology SO much better than an ole' fashioned paper and pencil?"


Whelp. I am not quite sure. I am very interested in using technology in the classroom but I don't want to use it just for the sake of using it.

Moving on,
Last Thursday Liz Kolb came and talked to us about many tools that she uses and how technology got her interested in school and in actually doing her assignments. That reason right there is reason enough for me to incorporate technology into my classroom in some fashion or another. Depending on the resources available to my students at home I love the idea of them having a blog or at least some sort of online presence in the class on a regular basis. After hearing about Fakebook and the educational uses of Facebook (which I hadn't really thought about since I am so familiar- unfortunately- with the interface) I would definitely like to incorporate those into the class as well. I would like my students to feel my presence outside the classroom and not just for the 55 minute period daily. I think that if technology use in my class can get students interested in the assignment then it might just get them interested in the class itself.  Especially in a World Language class I think the many different technologies we have talked about so far could be incredibly useful. In a program where little is WL focused- technology is not included in that category. If anything I think it could be the most WL applicable because we can use it for audio and for our students to hear native/near-native speakers as we are doing now to prepare for the OPI.

I think a lot of the stuff that Liz Kolb shared with us was awesome and her story of how technology got her interested and bringing it to a personal level is something that technology could do for that ONE student, in the same boat she was in. However, at the same time technology can also be incredibly alienating if a student does not have internet access or even a computer at home because his/her family cannot afford internet or a computer. How will that student feel? What about the students that are less familiar with the technology? How will they learn how to use it if we don't present a tutorial during class? What if they're the only student that doesn't have that knowledge?

As the end of the last paragraph illustrates, there are a lot of unanswered questions regarding technologies use in the classroom. I think that with time there will be fewer but for now look out.

Part 2

So Fakebook vs. Facebook: Wow. Fakebook is confusing and I was really caught off guard by how customizable but not-customizable it is. You pick a name for your Fakebook page and since its supposed to be a real person, their picture pops up. Or the other way around, if you pick a picture of a famous dead person- their name pops up. I like the idea that you can edit comments and responses but you are creating them and no one else can comment on them at all. That seems like a weird quality to have on a website that people are going to want to show others. I don't quite get that yet. Hopefully it will come to me soon :/

I do like the idea of creating a page for a historical figure (I did Alice Paul- wikipedia her, she's important). I think it will force students to really dig into the persona of a historical figure but everything that student would include on Fakebook about a historical figure can easily be found on their wikipedia page so once again...I like the concept of Fakebook but in real-world application I don't know how useful it would be. Many students would not know how to use it and would most likely be as confused as I was. That is not a reflection on those presenting...I think it was just that Fakebook is weird.

bientôt,