Resources for Flipped Professional Development

Video Transcription

In this tutorial, you'll learn about a wide variety of resources that you can use as you implement flipped professional development. I'll share with you some possibilities for flipped professional development platforms, resources for video creation, and resources for locating existing videos. Let's get started.

There are a variety of online platforms that you can use to deliver your flipped professional development. In this tutorial, I will share with you four different options. All of these options allow you to develop and share your flipped lessons, and these can include on all of these different platforms items like quizzes and links and documents and videos.

The first option is Sophia. Sophia allows you to develop a competency based lessons. On Sophia's platform, you can create a professional learning group, and then you can track the progress of the members of that group as they are working towards meeting their learning goals. You can also use Sophia's search feature to help you find more professional learning activities that other educators around the world have created and shared.

The next option is Schoology. Schoology also offers you the opportunity to track the progress of members of professional learning groups that you create on the platform. Schoology was originally developed for use by teachers intending to share information just with their students, but it can also be used as a platform for professional development.

The next option is Edmodo. Like Sophia and Schoology, Edmodo also offers you the opportunity to create and track the progress of a professional learning group.

And finally Weebly is actually a free website creator. So while it isn't necessarily intended to be an online learning platform, it does include the ability to embed videos and other items like links and documents and quizzes just like Sophia and Schoology and Edmodo do. Weebly allows you to easily share and access your flipped professional learning activities, and it also incorporates some social networking elements so that teachers can share their resources and practice with one another.

Next, let's look at some resources for creating educational videos. You can use screen casting options or digital camera applications at low cost or potentially even no cost. One option for doing this is a free tool by TechSmith called Jing. Jing allows you to take screenshots or to actually record a screencast for up to five minutes. The catch is that the video needs to be shared through a link and can't be shared using an embed code.

Snagit is another screencasting tool by TechSmith that also includes video editing features. There is a cost involved with Snagit, but educators are actually eligible for a significant discount for this tool. Snagit is user friendly, and it is a very useful screencasting tool. It allows you to save your video an mp4 file, or you can also choose to upload your video right to YouTube so that you and your students can have easy access to it. The more expensive and consequently more powerful version of this tool is called Camtasia, but you will find that Snagit actually shares many of the features of this more expensive option.

Another option if you happen to have a MacBook or a MacBook air is iMovie. In iMovie, you can vary easily edit your screencasts and other videos.

And finally iOS devices like iPhones, iPod Touches, and iPads can give you access to a wide variety of screen casting apps and video editing apps. So you can take a look in the app store on your iOS device to see what options might be available to you.

Finally, let's talk about some resources for locating videos that already exist. You might be able to embed these pre-created videos into your flipped lessons. If they can't be embedded, you certainly can link to them. And so here are some useful resources for locating videos that you might be able to use for the purpose of professional development.

First, you can certainly choose to search on YouTube. You can search for a particular strategy or a particular educational expert. YouTube allows you to copy what's called an embed code which allows you then to embed that video right into one of the platforms that we discussed a few minutes ago.

The Teaching Channel is another option that provides a wide array of videos that you can then use as individual components in your professional development. And finally Ted Talks are presentations delivered by leading experts in their fields. And once again, with a Ted Talk, you can embed either part or even all of the video presentation right into your flipped lesson.

With all these options available to you, here is a great time for you to stop and reflect. Select a few options from this list that sounded especially promising and take some time to check them out. Explore how you might use these resources in the context of your flipped professional development.

For more information on how to apply what you learned in this video, please view the additional resources section that accompanies this video presentation. The additional resources section includes hyperlinks useful for applications of the course material including a brief description of each resource.

Thanks for joining me today. Have a great day.