Basic Information

• What exactly is Flipgrid? Flipgrid is a platform designed to host educational videos for both students and educators and connect classrooms across the world, allowing them to share discussion, reflection, insight, and even entire lessons with each other. The main idea is for teachers to ask a question and have students respond with a video instead of a simple text post but it can be so much more, especially with the FlipgridAR service.
• Flipgrid was created by University of Minnesota Learning Technologies Professor Charles Miller but is now owned and operated by Microsoft. It is still operated out of Minneapolis.
• Flipgrid is a free service available as an app and on the internet to anyone in over 180 countries!
• Educators are provided with an instructional eBook for ease of use and for a more complete understanding of the service not detailed on the main Flipgrid site.
• Flipgrid has achieved 4/5 stars on commonsense.org and the same score by 18 teachers who have used it in their classrooms with a 76% privacy rating. Click here for their privacy policy.

Use

• I have not personally used flipgrid but the service could be useful in a history classroom to gather student responses to discussions, engage in debates with one another, reflect on important topics, engage in a FlipgridAR video to map out historical landmarks as a group, give recorded oral reports, and overall allow students to engage with learning on their own terms. Flipgrid would hopefully augment or even replace the need for face-to-face communication while also allowing for students to continue to engage with one another interactively and be overseen by a teacher in their video responses. In general terms, Flipgrid is aimed to create a way for distance, nervousness, or inability to interact with others in a traditional school setting to be a thing of the past. However, this app does require an internet connection and access to a computer, tablet, or phone, the latter two devices running IOS or an Android OS. A lack of any of this, or a failing in the servers that run Flipgrid, can result in this service being unavailable/inoperable for students and educators.
• Flipgrid is a good tool for students to understand social cooperation and get a taste of group learning in a less pressured environment. Some students may feel they have to contribute in a discussion or they haven’t participated in class. Flipgrid allows for each student to have a voice and allow for other students and the educators to hear what they have to say, possibly giving them greater confidence in their own opinions and preparing them for a future where they feel they can and should be heard. Not to mention Flipgrid works similarly to how some offices conduct meetings and interviews, which can be quite nerve-wracking and even complicated to the uninitiated. Flipgrid is a very good tool for allowing students to answer questions and reflect on topics their teacher sets up for them to deliberate upon, as well as listen to what other students have to say. Students can find new, interesting topics to get excited about in the “disco library”, engage in an education-friendly social media setting, and know their voice will be heard by their teacher. However, Flipgrid being something of a social media app can be distracting to some students and it can be hard to manage each and every response from a classroom, not to mention a full roster of students. While good for facilitating discussion, Flipgrid’s goal of more or less replacing the traditional Q&A style of classroom debate can lead to issues in the teacher’s ability to control the class, in having students focus on the given assignment, or having students interact face-to-face. Julie Smith details her experience using Flipgrid on her teacher tech blog here under the question, “Why can’t they just talk to one another in person?” and another example of Flipgrid being used in a classroom by teacher Ramesh Laungani here.

Ethics

• The social implications of Flipgrid are that while it does allow for students to have their voices and various personal opinions heard in an easy-to-use way that allows for feedback from others, it takes away from genuine interaction. There will be a notable lack of constructive criticism that is actually heard unless it comes directly from a teacher, not to mention face-to-face communication is integral to active social activity, which Flipgrid cannot replace, especially in a classroom. Use of flipgrid may also create a divide in students who come from low-income households with no access to technology like what is needed to operate Flipgrid if it were to be used as a homework supplement. It forces an unnecessary burden onto others for the sake of ease, something not conducive to effective or even good teaching.
• The personal implications of Flipgrid are that it can create an impersonal classroom culture and can even cause forms of procrastination given the video style of response needed. Students may put work off until the last minute, responses may not be focused or on-topic, questions and answers may take much more time to get through or create too many responses to sift through, stifling effective debate. Not to mention it can turn teachers a bit lazy, as a lesson could be supplemented with asking a number of questions then waiting for responses to pour in but never giving adequate credence to any of them and moving on, depriving students of some fundamental understandings of difficult topics.
• The environmental implications are tied to the idea of this app being used on separate phones, tablets, and computers for each student. If Flipgrid were to be mass-used in every classroom and each student provided with the means of accessing the app then rare Earth element mining would become far more devastating given the sheer number of students in the world. While Flipgrid allows for greater access to classroom around the world, broadening horizons in a new, inventive, and educational way, the environment would suffer for this and many animal habitats in South Africa, China, Russia, India, and even the United States would be rendered uninhabitable. And it is important to mention that water is needed in rare Earth and lithium mining, so much so that it could potentially cause a water shortage, an entirely unintended side effect to any mass-used technology. Links to information used here and here.

Conclusion

• Based on everything I’ve learned about Flipgrid, I can see the possibilities of using it in a classroom in a limited capacity. It should not be used more than a few times to give students a taste of some fun, interactive learning as it cannot and should not act as a supplement for regular, active teaching. Social interaction in a traditional setting and debate facilitated face-to-face by an educator is far more effective and leads to greater positive interaction and involvement by students overall, especially those without access to technology. Flipgrid can be fun for a one-day lesson where students use communal technology provided by the school to try out video group work and learn to helpfully criticize and correct other students about work they’ve done or questions they may have, but it should be noted that management will be difficult overall and focus on the assignment may need to be made sure of.