Mar 3, 2012

Instructional Tools for Flipping the Classroom

As we have moved the discussion further down the path to creating a flipped classroom, the talk has turned to how to create quality instruction.  It is altogether one thing to find the right screencast software or video editing software, and another to find the right tool to provide instruction.  Do you use an Interactive Whiteboard?  Do you use a video camera and a whiteboard?

As we have talked about providing instruction, we discussed Salman Khan.  If you have never seen his work, see my previous post on Flipping the Classroom or go to http://www.khanacademy.org/.  One of the tools he uses is SmoothDraw.  This is a free tool that provides a background on which you can write with different colored pens.  Originally intended to be a drawing tool, it works great for providing on screen instruction. 

The math teacher in our building who is working on flipping his classroom tried it.  Here is a taste of his first run with SmoothDraw.



Pretty good if you ask me!  While smoothdraw is a free tool for your computer, you can also use other tools like Explain Everything or Educreations for the iPad .

The next step is to find the best format for making this available.  Which website do you choose.  As our math teacher works with this, I will keep you updated on what we find that works best.

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