Sure, flipped classes and video lessons are not new technology, but how you can implement them in your classroom is much more varied than you might realize.
Of course you can do content lessons using flipped videos to allow for more time in class on practice (I also like using EdPuzzle to embed questions along the way for videos like this), but there are lots of other websites and blogs dedicated to helping you accomplish that objective. Instead, I want to focus on how video lessons can help facilitate and differentiate instructions.
One of my favorite ways to use video lessons is for giving instructions, especially complex multi-step instructions that are heavy on technology. Here's an example of a video I made guiding students through a complex set of steps:
Giving the students direct access to this video through their online class platform (Canvas) and telling them to watch the video on their own, so they can pause and work through the steps at their own pace allowed them to accomplish the task in a FRACTION of the time it would have taken to give these instructions verbally with live demonstration.
Furthermore, for students who are absent or need extra time, they can pause and rewatch the video over and over until they accomplish the task, while you as a teacher can walk around the classroom and trouble shoot individual problems.
These video instructions are especially helpful with ESL students, as giving them visual instructions which they can more easily follow, especially when it comes to multi-step processes.
I personally use ScreenCastOMatic for making my screen capture video lessons and instructional videos, but there are LOTS of different platforms that allow you to do this. Google has a chrome plug in extension called Screencastify, which is completely free, and functions in the same way that ScreenCastOMatic does, but it has the added feature of automatically uploading all of the videos that you make to your personal YouTube channel (automatically created and linked to your Google Gmail account). The only downside is that the free version limits the videos to only 15 minutes and the quality isn't quite as nice. Check it out and give it a try!
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