Surviving Sickness with Flipped Instruction

So sickness has hit my household hard this year! My 13-month-old daughter is in a corporate daycare
full time, and she is bringing home sicknesses I have never heard of. After two days out with my own illness she contracted hand, foot, mouth disease, which is terrible. It is also very contagious, and a week later it hit my husband and then me. So three weeks into school, and I've already been out of the classroom for five days, including one professional day for a meeting.

Needless to say it's been a rough start, however I'm happy to say I think the students are still learning something even in my absence.

I have to admit I have the concept of flipped instruction to thank for that. I've been using flipped videos in my classroom for the past few years, but only occasionally. Now, this year I've discovered how helpful they can be when I'm absent or even when students are absent!

In the wake of a new Learning Management System (LMS), new devices, and new course curriculum, AND this sickness, I've had to take advantage of the flipped instruction model more than I have in the past.

I wanted to take some time to share out the different ways I make his work in my classroom including:

• Using Screencastify (free Google Chrome extension)
• Editing in YouTube Editor
• Adding closed captions in YouTube

I won't go into great amounts of step-by-step detail because I have to take advantage of my current sick day to get some grading finished. (Teachers never truly get a sick day, right?)

Screen Recording with Screencastify

First, Screencastify is a fee extension for Google Chrome. If you haven't discovered extensions yet you need to browse the Google Chrome store and see what's available. Extensions are basically magical little buttons that get added to your Google Chrome browser for easy access. What Screencastify does is it allows you to record, up to 10 minutes, of video. It records your computer screen (single tab, multiple tabs, or entire screen) and audio with the option of also recording a video of your smiling face in the bottom right corner of your video. Check out this tutorial for step-by-step instructions on how to use this fantastic extension . 

When it comes to flipping my instruction, I've been using Screencastify to how students how to do various critical reading methods and how to use graphic organizers I've created to go along with the critical reading method. In the past I would sit in the front of the room with my computer and/or a document camera and demo how to do the reading method, however by using flipped instruction I can instead walk around the room and provide one-on-one instruction and/or clarification as needed. This allows students who understand the method faster to get right to work, and those who need a little extra instruction or prodding to access me right away rather than me sitting up front for 20 minutes for everyone. 

I've embedded one of my most recent flipped instruction videos below. 

Editing Flipped Videos with YouTube Editor

Second, I've learned to avoid hitting the stop button when I mess up recording my videos. It can be really frustrating when you get 3 minutes into your recording and someone comes over the school PA or your classroom phone rings. Take a deep breath, count to five, and start a little before where you got messed up. YouTube actually as a pretty basic editing function that can be helpful in cutting out these little bloopers and saving the edited video to your YouTube channel. Now, Screencastify's default is to save the video to your Google Drive, so obviously if you want to do some editing in YouTube's editor you'll need to first upload your first draft of the video to your YouTube channel. Don't worry, you can upload it with the "Private" setting and no one will be able to see the video with the mistakes. I usually delete the one with all the bloopers after I've finished my editing. 

Adding Closed Captions

Next, I recently had a hearing impaired student join my class and had to scramble to figure out how to add closed captions to my existing videos. I first turned to YouTube and got extremely frustrated with how their captioning worked, however I realized I was in the wrong function/setting and was making it way more difficult than it needed to be. I will tell you that ideally you should write script before you record your video. You should do this whether or not you have to add captions, but I'm telling you it will save you a lot of headache if you have to put closed captions on your videos. Here is the step-by-step document I used when I was trying to figure this out. 

When you get to the point that you have to select a method for how you want to add subtitles, you'll have three options. The first is "Upload a file", which is where having a written script that you followed while recording is helpful. The second option is "Transcribe and auto-sync", which is the method that I had to use with my first closed captioned video. It took a while to transcribe, but YouTube worked out the timing perfectly. The third option is the one that I wasted a lot of time with. Let Google do the timing for you, with option number two. It's actually more accurate than trying to do it yourself. 

My school uses our own LMS provided by New Tech Network to distribute work to students, which is how I get them my flipped videos. Once your videos are on YouTube though you can get the links to students via Google Classroom or even QR codes. If YouTube is blocked in your school, you can download the video from YouTube and place it in your Google Drive. Be aware that if you download the video, you lose your closed captions, however you can always provide the student with the original script.