Sunday, September 20, 2015

Hello Speed Dating- A Flipclass Version of a Get-to-Know-You Activity Using Doceri

The beginning of every school year presents unique challenges and this year was no different. Each year I try to think of creative ways to have my students get to know each other. For the first time in my career I found myself teaching a semester course called American Issues. Due to the fact that I was teaching these students for only a semester, I wanted to expedite this process and help me and my students get to know each other faster. Inspiration came from a pirate, a colleague and Doceri.

To start off the school year our district brought in the author, the Pirate himself, Dave Burgess. Dave started off his presentation with a "taboo" topic pictured on the screen to get the audience interested in what might be discussed during the presentation and create some excitement and nervous tension in the room. I decided to use a similar idea for my students. I have been lucky to work with a dedicated, creative and collaborative colleague, Jason Bretzmann, for the past 13 years. Jason shared an idea with me about how he was going to have his class participate in a quick get-to-know-you activity. As I listened to Jason's idea, it helped me to create my own activity by combining the "taboo topic" idea from Dave and the idea of a speedy introduction from Jason.

Doceri is my all-time favorite tech tool and it is the one I cannot teach without. I decided to start off each class period with this on the SMART Board:

I created a brief Doceri recording of instructions for my students to listen to at the start of class on day two. As students walked into the classroom and saw the screen, they were unsure what was going to take place in class that day. That was exactly what I wanted. I love how easily Doceri allows me to create custom presentations. I quickly and easily found the pictures I wanted from the Internet and added a picture of my classroom that I took directly from my iPad. Using my iPad, I can easily record what I want to say over the slides. I am also able use Doceri to control my laptop and access all of my files, including a Google document that I created specifically for this introduction activity, and have it all work together seamlessly.  

Doceri makes it easy to replay your recording throughout the day as well as upload your recording to, for example, your own YouTube channel or Edmodo account for future use. With Doceri, your presentations are limited only by your creativity.

To watch the full version, click here. Hello Speed Dating
Speed Dating------Speed Getting to Know You