GoAnimate was a "no-go"

So I thought it would be a very cool culminating activity for my students to use GoAnimate to create a cartoon clip of how an interview should go.  When we first turned to the website, it seemed like it captured their attention!  #eduwin I thought to myself!  Then, things went downhill.  First, I had some students who chose to use the technology inappropriately, getting the characters to say inappropriate things.  Needless to say this was frustrating.  Secondly, and perhaps even worse, there were no SAVE capabilities!  Apparently as Go Animate has gotten more popular, the "free" features have become less and less.  This was really disappointing and kind of put a kibosh (sp?) on the lesson.  At least I tried....

The alternative suggested was PowToon.  I directed some students to try this site, however, I found it to be MUCH less user friendly.  The students were not able to pick it up on their own and since I had only prepped with GoAnimate, I wasn't of much help to them.

As I use new tools like this, a question I struggle with is how much time to spend to "teaching" the tool.  In this case, I did not want to spend an entire class period teaching how to use PowToon so they could use it for this one assignment.  If it was something more globally useful, say Prezi, I would in fact dedicate the time.  But, in this instance, with an already jam packed curriculum it just wasn't something I could devote the time to.

Flip! Flop!?

Well...it's nearing the end of the semester and it's CRUNCH time.  I'm teaching a new course this semester and apparently I didn't plan out my time all that well and it's getting down to the buzzer and I have quite a bit left to fit in.   I found myself in this dilemma AND contemplating new ways to deliver new information to students other than notes, Powerpoints, etc.  I get so bored with those "lecture" days, yet I still feel they are somewhat essential at times so I still do them, but I"m sure the students get bored too.  Between a crunch for time and a hatred for lecture, I decided it was time to try "flipping" my classroom.  I asked my class today, "Can I count on you to do additional readings at home, so that we can spend more time in class doing hands-on labs?"  They replied with a resounding "yes" as they are very anxious to do the skills labs.  So, this week, we will begin.  Instead of giving the dreaded notes I was planning, which contained the details of several jobs in the Diagnostic Services cluster, I am going to have them review the section of the chapter and then choose 1 of several YouTube videos to watch (from a list I provide).  In class, we will get to spend the extra time with a guest speaker from the field and doing a lab to practice diagnostic type skills.  We shall see how it goes!  Let's hope this FLIP doesn't FLOP!