The highest levels of Bloom’s (revised) taxonomy include analyzing, evaluating, and creating. Read below to find out how students can engage in all three of those levels with Flip Cams – no matter what subject you teach.

What’s a Flip Cam?

Flip Cams are very simple video cameras. Essentially, all they have is a power button and a record button. When you plug them into the computer via USB, the video is already optimized for the web. As far as video goes, it doesn’t get any easier.

I first implemented Flip Cams in my computer class during a multimedia unit four years ago. Students made short films and edited them into final productions. The kids really liked using them, and it was relatively painless on the tech side of things.

A New Perspective

I never considered using Flip Cams in “regular” core classes until I attended David Sladkey’s presentation at the ICE Conference in 2012. He blogs about how he uses Flip Cams here. In short, he has his students produce “one-shot” (no editing) short videos demonstrating how to solve math problems that he assigns for homework. He then uploads those videos to YouTube to share with his other students.

By using this cool piece of technology, Sladkey has come up with  a way to take math homework from Bloom’s third level of application all the way up and through analysis, evaluation, and creation.

Across the Curriculum

EVERY content area could utilize this strategy. Social Studies students could conduct “one-shot” primary source analyses. Math students could demonstrate math concepts by solving problems. Reading students could read short passages and identify literary devices. Science students could conduct mini-lectures with visual aids. The possibilities are endless.

BYOD

Worried about the cost of implementing such a technology integration strategy? Chances are you have a video camera in your pocket right now. You might call it an iPhone or Android, but video recording technology has come such a long way in such a short time, that in any given class, you probably have access to 15-25 devices that would be capable of this technique.

Rubric

I’ve attached a rubric that I adapted from Sladkey. You can download it here: One-Shot Video Rubric

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