The biggest problem was that I didn’t know how to make videos. I had done some very basic video editing in the past, but lacked knowledge about any current apps or software. The TSA suggested ShowMe as a good first step. It’s an interactive whiteboard app for iPad that lets you narrate over slides. There are very few choices - adding pictures, a few colours, and an erase function. And that’s it. I know it may seem limiting, but when you are first starting out, reducing options makes something Really Scary seem far more approachable.
So I started making etymology videos. I took what I would have done in class and put it on video. What I found was that I could get through the instruction in ⅔ the time, AND be able to walk around the room helping students and keeping them on-task. Students who missed class or spaced out could see the video again on their own time. Slow writers could pause whenever they wanted to. Even though I didn’t end up assigning it as homework, it saved us so much class time that we were able to do far more writing than we would have pre-flip.
The next thing I used ShowMe for was creating videos of me reading the text aloud (Night, Looking for Alaska, Of Mice and Men, The Great Gatsby and Crown of Dust so far). I would put the text on screen, then read it aloud. I sometimes mark my place with little dots down the margin so students can follow along.