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Three Ways to Use Flipgrid Now That All Features are Free

In case you missed it last week, Flipgrid was acquired by Microsoft. Microsoft then made all of the premium features of Flipgrid available for free to everyone! (If you had previously paid for a premium Flipgrid account, you will get a pro-rated refund). Now that all aspects of Flipgrid are available to all users, let’s take a look at some of the ways that you can use Flipgrid in your classroom.

Instructional videos
Now that you and your students have up to five minutes for each video, consider using Flipgrid to have students post short instructional videos. Students can position their webcams or their phones (Flipgrid has free iOS and Android apps) to record themselves teaching a lesson on a whiteboard. Or rather than using a whiteboard students can use the Flipgrid mobile apps to record themselves showing to complete a physical project like an Arduino or other robotics project.

Scheduled Launch & Freeze Dates
The ability to schedule a launch (activation) date and freeze (closing) date for a topic with a grid was a premium feature until this past week. Now everyone can schedule a date for a topic to become activate and accepting of responses. And now everyone can schedule a freeze date on which a topic will stop accepting responses. Scheduling a freeze date can be a good incentive for students to submit a response on time. Schedule a launch date can use helpful to busy teachers who want to create a bunch of Flipgrid topics at once and then have those topics become activate over the course of a week or month.

A Grid for Every Section or Every Unit
Previously, Flipgrid limited users of the free plan to one grid. Within that grid you could have many topics. That wasn’t a bad system but it could get cluttered over time. That was particularly true for middle school and high school teachers who might have four or more sections of course and they were making a different topic for each section. Now those teachers can make a different grid for each section of a course. On a similar note, you can now make a different grid for each unit of study that you teach.

If you have never tried Flipgrid, take a look at my video for a brief overview of how it works.

These were last week’s most popular posts on FreeTech4Teachers.com:
1. Huge Flipgrid News! – All Features Now Free
2. New Google Forms Customization Options
3. Identifying Cities from Historic Maps – A Geography Game
4. Five Ways to Create Mind Maps and Flowcharts Online
5. Grackle – Assess the Accessibility of Your Google Docs & Slides
6. Vynchronize – Watch Videos and Discuss Them in the Same Window
7. Add Voice Recordings to Maps

Sale! 5 Webinars for Just $25!

The summer is a great time to do some professional learning at your pace. In this summer sales pack I have included my most popular webinars of the last six months. You can watch these webinars whenever you like and as often as you like. Purchased individually these five webinars would cost $100. But during this sale you’ll get them all for just $25!

Included in this professional development package:

  • 5 Video Projects for Almost Every Classroom
  • 5 Ways to Blend Technology Into Outdoor Lesson
  • Google Forms & Sheets for Beginners
  • Ten Search Strategies Students Need to Know
  • Intro to Using Augmented and Virtual Reality in Your Classroom (only available through this sale package).