A free and powerful app for remote learning

Flipgrid is an educational application developed for teachers and students. It offers a quick way for its users to facilitate video discussions, making it a perfect tool for remote learning. The app is free to use and can be launched on any camera-enabled device.

Flipgrid has social media-like features and offers connections and multiple means of expression that you can apply to almost any topic. However, this design can also distract students from the purpose of the assignment. Additionally, while it has a mobile version, teachers will have to create a class from the web browser version.  

What is Flipgrid?

Flipgrid is an app that allows teachers to facilitate video discussions. Here, students are organized into groups and then given access to discussion topics. This topic space serves as an interactive message board, in which the teacher poses the questions, and students will post video responses. The video responses can be 15 seconds to 10 minutes and will be posted in a tiled grid display.

The teachers can determine a maximum recording time for each response and allow students to record replies. More than that, there are other moderation features that educators can turn on and off per topic. There is also a CoPilot feature, which allows more than one teacher to be a group moderator. Meanwhile, students can take advantage of the sticky note on the recording screen to type key points during discussions.

As mentioned, the app comes with a well-designed and easy-to-use interface that resembles the popular social networking platforms today. Moreover, it offers flexibility that gives options around how the users want to demonstrate learning. It even provides customizable rubrics for teachers to set expectations and provide feedback. Although, the social media-like look can be a bit distracting to its younger audience. Some users also report difficulty in uploading videos.

Should you use it?

Overall, Flipgrid is an excellent tool for teaching. The app offers a way for teachers to create fun, interactive, and collaborative discussions. Moreover, it encourages student participation by allowing them to post their response to every topic. The app also comes with a social media-style interface for easy navigation. Although, it can be distracting to students, especially those who are into social networking.