Flipping the EFL Classroom with Screen Capture Technology (Snagit)

For those who aren’t familiar with this terminology or technique, in the flipped classroom the students become familiar with the theory before going to class through a video or a reading that the teacher has assigned for homework. So the first exposure to new material is done outside the class. This allows more time in class to practice the theory extensively.

We should bear in mind that the flipped classroom is neither a language theory nor a methodology but there are theories that underpin in. The most prominent one is Bloom’s Taxonomy of learning. In the pyramid bellow the low order thinking skills are positioned at the lower end of the pyramid. These less demanding cognitive processes take place at home where the students become acquainted with the theory and comprehend it through a video or a reading that the teacher has assigned for homework. 

As we proceed up the pyramid higher levels of cognitive processes take place. This high order thinking takes place in class. 

In more detail, during the application phase, students apply and practice in the classroom what they learnt in the video/reading at home. 

The teacher can conduct many class discussions and analyze a topic from multiple perspectives. I believe this is ideal for the EFL classroom because EFL learners are given abundant opportunities to speak the language, thus practice it.

The evaluation stage provides students the opportunity to present their take on the topic. 

As we reach the top of the pyramid, students co-construct knowledge (e.g. through collaborative writing). This is not always feasible. It is accomplished depending on the task that the teacher has assigned. This creation stage represents the essence of learning, where you make use of the theory that you have learnt and practiced in the previous stages and create your own piece of work which depicts your distinct perception of the world.

Benefits

• Saves teachers time
• .Less theory based lessons.
•   Focus on practical issues. Practice the language through task based tasks and group activities. => Learning occurs through interaction and not in isolation. 
•  Explore a topic in greater depth

Limitations

• Cannot directly check student’s understanding when they are watching the video. Solution à Revisionary Quiz, Drill ect. in the beginning of the lesson
•  Some students may have limited access to the internet. Parents tend to restrict the access to the internet because of the hazards that are hidden on the internet.
•   Lazy students may avoid watching the video or the reading that was assigned for HW.
•  Some societies aren’t mature enough to embrace such approaches. They might accuse the teacher for not working enough in the classroom. 

In this blog entry we are going to create a video through Snagit and upload it on youtube

Let’s assume we are going to teach an essay topic on national holidays and we want to save some time from our actual lesson, so we have decided to flip the classroom by creating a video on national holidays. To save some time I created a pdf presentation of what I wanted to speak about in the video. You can choose to do it in a different way. Once you have downloaded Snagit, it will always appear at the top of your screen. So every time you place the cursor over there the application will pop up as illustrated in the picture below.

After you have clicked on video (from snagit), you select the area that you want to record and click on the red button to start recording. This is illustrated in the picture bellow.

Once you have finished with your recording, save your video and click on the youtube icon and “send to youtube”. Bear in mind that you can access you tube from you google account. This is illustrated bellow.

 

You can find the video that I created here.  Notice that I finish the video with thought provoking questions so they can commence brainstorming for ideas to discuss in class and to include in their essay.  

When you try out this technique please come back to this blog entry and leave me a comment on how it turned out. The dynamic of each class is different so every time you apply it turns out differently from the previous time. I am very curious to read your experiences about flipping the classroom with screen capture technology.