A Presenter's Worst Nightmare
A couple of weeks ago, our innovation team was in charge of running a PD afternoon. Every Tuesday, students are dismissed earlier, and teachers stay a little longer. This time is dedicated to professional development or other staff needs. Since we continue to support the blended learning goal we decided to offer workshops about tools that aligned with this. We invited three innovator teachers to participate as well, for a total of five sessions on: Brainpop, Flipgrid, Adobe Spark, Creation of Gifs, and Flippity.
I was going to run the session on Flippity. As the site describes it: "Easily turn a Google™ Spreadsheet into a Set of Online Flashcards and Other Cool Stuff". I thought the teachers would love to create online resources with which the kids could interact, and it's so simple to use. The day came. We divided the afternoon in two and would repeat the 5 sessions in each block of time. We had sent out a Google Form with the description of each tool so teachers could sign up for two sessions.
Great! All is going well...until...Flippity is down! On that Tuesday, at 8:45 am, they announced that Google had made some changes with spreadsheets and that the system was down and it would take some time to correct. No!! What am I going to do now? Cancel? Wait and see if it works? Change tools? Oh dear, I felt so frustrated! I'll tell you, it isn't the first time that something unexpected happens in a presentation I'm offering. I've had recent updates in which my screenshots don't match anymore, I've had power failures and with the internet down, I've had frozen computers, last minute change of rooms, etc., but not that the tool I'm going to present is not working anymore.
Ok. Plan B. I chose to change tools. After some thought, I decided to share Padlet. Padlet is, according to them: "the easiest way to create and collaborate in the world". I had not used Padlet in a really long time. So I played around with it and I was amazed and how much it had improved since the last time I used it. It was going to be the perfect substitute for the afternoon! It made collaborating a breeze and ideal for any grade level since kids don't need to create accounts. The bulletin board can be shared or embedded easily. You can upload content in a variety of ways, including drawing!
So the time came, and I started my session with a quick disclaimer. I told them about the issues I faced and that this was not going to be about Flippity. If they were already familiar with Padlet they could change to another session. Everyone stayed! By the end of each of the sessions, teachers were excited about Padlet and were eager to begin using in their learning platforms to enhance their blended learning teaching.
I'm so glad I got to accidentally work with Padlet again. It's amazing! (By the way, on the following day, Flippity was back and running. 😌)
Cheers!
I was going to run the session on Flippity. As the site describes it: "Easily turn a Google™ Spreadsheet into a Set of Online Flashcards and Other Cool Stuff". I thought the teachers would love to create online resources with which the kids could interact, and it's so simple to use. The day came. We divided the afternoon in two and would repeat the 5 sessions in each block of time. We had sent out a Google Form with the description of each tool so teachers could sign up for two sessions.
Great! All is going well...until...Flippity is down! On that Tuesday, at 8:45 am, they announced that Google had made some changes with spreadsheets and that the system was down and it would take some time to correct. No!! What am I going to do now? Cancel? Wait and see if it works? Change tools? Oh dear, I felt so frustrated! I'll tell you, it isn't the first time that something unexpected happens in a presentation I'm offering. I've had recent updates in which my screenshots don't match anymore, I've had power failures and with the internet down, I've had frozen computers, last minute change of rooms, etc., but not that the tool I'm going to present is not working anymore.
Ok. Plan B. I chose to change tools. After some thought, I decided to share Padlet. Padlet is, according to them: "the easiest way to create and collaborate in the world". I had not used Padlet in a really long time. So I played around with it and I was amazed and how much it had improved since the last time I used it. It was going to be the perfect substitute for the afternoon! It made collaborating a breeze and ideal for any grade level since kids don't need to create accounts. The bulletin board can be shared or embedded easily. You can upload content in a variety of ways, including drawing!
So the time came, and I started my session with a quick disclaimer. I told them about the issues I faced and that this was not going to be about Flippity. If they were already familiar with Padlet they could change to another session. Everyone stayed! By the end of each of the sessions, teachers were excited about Padlet and were eager to begin using in their learning platforms to enhance their blended learning teaching.
I'm so glad I got to accidentally work with Padlet again. It's amazing! (By the way, on the following day, Flippity was back and running. 😌)
Cheers!
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