Do your students get nervous speaking in front of the class? Well, I’ve got a tool that can help them practice speaking at home, on their own time. And you, as a teacher, can give them the feedback they truly need.
Before we get started, a huge thank you to all the members on both my YouTube channel and my website, your support is what allows me to produce more content like this.
I also want to say a big thank you to Paul, who gave me my very first Super Thanks! I honestly didn’t even know these things existed, so seeing it was a real surprise and a delight. So, thank you very much, Paul!
Exploring Microsoft Flip
Alright, let’s take a look at how Flip works. I’ll give you a little tutorial if you haven’t used it before, and then I’ll show you some ways I’ve been using it with my students.
Once you’ve logged in or created an account on the Flip main website, you’ll see options on the left-hand side. There’s “Camera” (in case you’re using your laptop and webcam), “Mixtape” (for combining various videos from yours, your students’, and yours exclusively as the teacher), and “Groups” (where you can create new groups – you can see I’ve already made a couple).
If you click on your profile icon in the top right corner, you’ll find more settings. The one I want to show you is called “Discovery.” Here, you’ll find many example prompts or topics. Fliptopics are like questions that group various videos together. For example, if you have several videos answering the same question about an article, Flip groups them all under a “topic.”
How to create a group in Microsoft Flip
Simply click the plus sign, go to “Create a Group,” choose the grade level (I chose “All Ages” since I use it with teens and adults), click “Next,” and enter a group name. You can also choose a background (think of it like Google Classroom). Just like that, the group has been created!
Once your group is created, you have a couple of options for adding students. You can give them the link directly, share it via Google Classroom, or send it to their emails. Here, you can decide whether anyone with the link can join, or you can require approval before they can join the group.
Even after creating the group, you can still edit it. You can change the image to a custom one from your computer and decide who has permissions to create topics.
How to create a topic in Microsoft Flip
Next, let’s look at how to create topics. Go into your group and click the plus sign that says “Topic” on the right-hand side. Here, you have options to customize your topic, similar to how you customized the group.
First, you’ll need to ask your students a question. For example, “Do you like pineapple on your pizza?” (Of course, everyone will say yes because it’s the best pizza topping!)
Once you have the question, you can add a description or some more context. This might not be necessary for simpler topics, but for more complex ones, it can be helpful to provide additional guidance for your students.
Below that, you can add images, media, emojis, or even a video to give your students more context.
The next important thing is recording time. It’s crucial to give your students enough time to answer your question, especially if they’re lower-level students who need more time to think about what they’re going to say.
Some important features for educators
There are a few important settings you should be aware of. The first is the checkbox that says “Submit to Educator.” This is a great feature because it gives teachers a lot of control over what gets submitted. You can turn this on so that whenever students submit a video, you have the opportunity to make sure it’s appropriate for the other students to see.
Another thing to note is the settings option in the top right corner. I really like platforms that don’t require students to create accounts. It can be a hassle in the classroom to have every student make an account with an email address, and sometimes they forget their passwords.
Flipoffers a nice option to avoid this: you can turn on the “guest” option, allowing students to submit video responses without creating accounts. By setting a password for the guest option, you eliminate the need for them to create individual accounts.
One thing to note is that students don’t necessarily need to join the group. They can join the topic directly through the guest password and submit video responses solely through a topic and a guest password.
How to record a video in Microsoft Flip
To record a video, you’ll need to give Flip access to your camera and microphone. Here, you can see me recording a video. You can choose audio-only recording, which is great for students who are camera-shy.
On the right-hand side, you can add text, drawings, stickers, gifts, filters, and lenses. Lenses can be a great option for students who are self-conscious about being on camera. I encourage my students to use them because the most important thing is that they speak and I can provide feedback on their speaking skills.
On the top left-hand side, both students and teachers can access the topic again as a reminder of what they need to speak about. Another feature I really like is the board on the side. As a teacher, I found this very useful for giving students feedback on vocabulary and pronunciation errors.
Once students are happy with all the features, they can click the “Record” button to start speaking. The video will then be submitted to the topic.
Before I show you the first way I use Flip in my classroom, I want to give a big shout out to Cristina Cabal and her blog https://www.cristinacabal.com/. Her blog offers many cool ideas for English language teachers, not just related to technology, but also lesson plans – all for free! She also does workshops, and her ideas were a big inspiration for me to use Flipin the classroom.
Using Flip in the Classroom: Idea Number 1
The first way I use Flip is with topics based on questions from video series on Vogue’s YouTube channel called “73 Questions.” In this series, celebrities are interviewed in their homes with a list of 73 questions.
For my class, I chose to use Taylor Swift. As suggested by Christina’s lesson plan, my students first watched the video with Taylor Swift and took notes on any questions they would like to ask their classmates.
In this example, I had five students in my class, and each created a topic with the questions they wanted to ask. Then, the students joined those topics and recorded their responses to the questions.
For instance, one of my students asked the class, “What was the last thing you baked?” (Obviously, I won’t show these videos because I haven’t asked my students for permission.) Here, at the bottom, you can see that we had three responses, and the students could watch these videos and respond to each other’s answers as well. This was done on the very first day of class and was a great way for the students to get to know each other.
Using Flip in the Classroom: Idea Number 2
The second example is for a student preparing for the Cambridge proficiency exams. One part of the speaking paper involves describing photos. Here’s a topic I created: “Speaking Practice Describing Photos.” The instructions are included according to the exam, and on the right-hand side, you can see the photos used in this particular exam.
As mentioned before, when creating the topic, I could add images. So, I simply took the images from the speaking exam and uploaded them onto Flip.
I won’t show you the student’s response, but I will show you my response to him. Here’s my video response to his first video. On the right-hand side, you can see that I’ve isolated some vocabulary that I thought he had trouble pronouncing. To do this, I recorded my video, selected the board option, split the screen in half, and added some text. You can do this whenever your students give you a video response – you can provide video feedback like this.
Why you should use Microsoft Flip
These were just two examples of how I’ve used Flip in the classroom. I hope this inspires you to use Flip with your students as well. It has many benefits. For example, in my case, I had a student I only saw once a week, and giving him this opportunity to practice speaking skills outside of class was very beneficial. Additionally, Flip is a great tool for shy students who are uncomfortable speaking in front of the class. You can give them speaking tasks to do at home where they feel more comfortable, and you can provide them with the feedback they need, as I did with my students.