EduCanon: The Flipped Classroom

Last Sunday I discovered EduCanon and and was instantly hooked on the possibilities it could hold for my flipped classroom.  I immediately created my first video and instantly saw how this could further improve my flipped classroom at school - https://www.educanon.com/ 

Excited yet? You will be in a minute!

Educanon allows you to seamlessly add interactive questions into any video from a vast range of sources, from YouTube, to Vimeo, to well anywhere!

Not only does it allow you to do this, but it allows you find out how the children have got on with the questions you've asked them. I gives you a graphical overview for every question and every child.

The ability to do this helped me achieve something I hadn't completely got my head around -  Finding out who had and who hadn't watched the video.  One of the problems with the flipped classroom is knowing who has and hasn't watched the videos before coming to school.  I've tried hidden words in videos, mini quizzes when the children arrived in school and them just being honest - to be honest all of them were honest if they didn't. 

I now know with a few clicks of a button who has and hasn't accessed the videos they needed to watch. 

Last week I blogged about how the children had been using Edmodo Quizzes to help them find their next steps in learning.  Read here

I've some great success with this, but the quizzes were not linked directly to the videos I was posting for the children.  They had to go looking for them.

This isn't a huge problem, but what I love about EduCanon is that the questions and embedded into the videos and are interactive. They have to give an answer to move on to the next part of the video. 

There are a range of questions you can use with the children, including multiplie choice and my personal favourite a 'thinking moment.'  

The image shows one of the videos from this week and how I've embedded the different types of questions into it. Watch it - here

Setting up the videos or bulbs doesn't take very long at all. Find the link, paste it in and start adding questions by hitting the pause button - you can even record your voice to help the children who struggle with reading the questions.

You then assign the bulbs (videos) to your class and set a date for them to watched by. The children are then presented with this screen when they log in.

The children get a green star when they've completed a bulb and they can even watch the videos again.

The children used this option during lessons to help themselves when they were struggling with a concept.  

Integrating with Edmodo

Now, the biggest selling point for me was when I discovered that the children didn't need to sign up, didn't need to remember new passwords or new websites - it links to Edmodo. I yelped in excitement when I saw all my class appear seamlessly on EduCanon via the Apps feature on Edmodo.  The children were instantly members!

We'd never used the Apps feature before, so I created a short screencasting video for the class instructing them on how to access their videos - watch it - here

So the children log into Edmodo, navigate to the EduCanon App and they are then presented with their interactive videos for the week.  

It gives the children a score at the end, but that remains private and only for the teacher and the child's knowledge.  This approach is important as we don't want a competitive nature to build in our classrooms.  

There are two reasons for using this method:

1. The Flipped Classroom: Children viewing content prior to the lesson so they can begin to apply skills back in the classroom.

2. The children can find their own next steps and know which challenge they need to try before they come to school

Reflective Time

Here is an example of a thinking time or reflective pause. We use these in the classroom, so why not when we are using a video.

I've often written about Pause, Rewind my Teacher, (in fact I wrote a book about it) and this really does enable the children to pause and think with an input from the class teacher.

I have only been using this for a couple of weeks, but the children seem very engaged with it and I've had some really positive responses from the parents in my class.  I'll be reporting back over the next few weeks about how my class have been using it and some of the mistakes and success I've had.

I'm excited, are you? 

Keep following on Twitter @chriswaterworth