BCCE, Collaboration and Flipgrid

"What are we doing to help kids achieve?"

It was my hope, intention and desire to get to BCCE. BCCE is a great opportunity to geek out with other really cool science people. A person gets the chance to focus on teaching and learning without bells going off, the dog barking, or kids needing rides somewhere. Unfortunately, I will not be able to attend this year and will have to withdraw from several presentations and workshops. A family member is having a medical procedure and family has to come first. If you are thinking about going to BCCE, please sign up. Do not hesitate to report your findings on ChemEd X. Sharing great ideas is the best way to build a great community of educators and students.

Speaking of sharing and collaborating, I got a great idea from Christine Pinto while she was on her way to ISTE in Chicago. Christine did a collaboration project using Flipgrid. Flipgrid is a program that has just been bought by Microsoft. A teacher sets up a "class" on Flipgrid with a "prompt". Students receive a Flipgrid code. They read the prompt and have sixty to ninety seconds to respond with a video response to the prompt. The teacher checks and moderates the videos and allows them to become public. Students are able to see what other students said. The "Grid" can also be opened to parents and other classes. Christine had her kindergarten class reported the weather each day on Flipgrid and another class of students across the country saw the videos and responded.

Here is what I propose. I would like to work with another teacher, hopefully a teacher that is reading this, and have our classes collaborate. Each of us will pick a topic. For arguments sake, suppose I choose the topic "heat and temperature" and you might pick "kinetic theory of matter". I would develop a prompt for "heat and temperature" that my students would respond to on "Flipgrid" and you would do the same for your topic. When my students are studying "kinetic theory of matter", they could check out your "grid" to see what your students have to say on the matter. The same would hold true for your students when they start studying "heat and temperature". Perhaps we could do this once or twice a semester. Maybe at the end we could follow up with a Facetime or Skype session. Another nice benefit that Christine reported is that the students involved formed connections and empathy for each other. In the world that we live in, perhaps education and technology can bring people together to form better relationships and bonds. Anybody interested? If so, let me know....I would love to work with you.

EDITORS NOTE: As you can see by the comments below, several teachers have taken Chad up on his offer to collaborate. With the beginning of the school year right around the corner, we have decided to limit this group to those who have already contacted him. Watch for other opportunities like this in the future.