Short & Sweet Models using the "Human Factor"

Recent Understandings of Personalizing my Online Classroom

To date on my major project I have completed the following changes in my revamp of my online courses.  I have incorporated FlipGrid into my forums so that it appears in the introduction of the forum.  The students can either answer the question/share their opinion in the FlipGrid and/or type in their answer in the forum discussion area.  Either would be great in contributing to the class but I of course would prefer that they express themselves in the FlipGrid as it adds to the "Humanness" of the course.

You can pay for the subscription for a year and although it has ten grids these have unlimited "question/answer" areas that have their own unique URL/embed code.  This is extremely handy for me as I can put the same grid in my regular English Language Arts 30 assignment which has many students as my Project Based ELA A30 which is generally a lot smaller.  You can also use it to have students show their projects in other subject areas such as Math & Science.  They may have to have 2-3 scenes if they need to present more than 1 minute 30 seconds.  However that in itself allows them to be concise and articulate in their presentations.

I also learned that although I  usually do not enjoy being in a video recording (such as the big production ones that I develop in Camtasia) I actually enjoyed recording these short and simple Flip Grids.  I feel that my students will also feel more comfortable responding to my example in a short and sweet manner.  Thus the focus will be on the message rather than the media.  I find that am able to relax more and add a bit of humour to my online presence and to online education.  This is something that I definitely have lost since I transitioned from the face to face classroom to the online classroom.  Although I am relaxed enough to practice it the odd time I am face to face with students, on initial phone in assignments and in student feedback it does not come across consistently in my online practise/lesssons. #flipgrid #personalizing online classroom #ECMP455