Monday, December 17, 2012

Flipped [flipt], (adj)

I told the students who are doing my online CALL course to keep a running review of at least three Technology in Education blogs. One of my students, Moriya,  chose to follow the following blogs: Free Technology for Teachers (which has received its fifth Edublog Award for the Best EdTech Blog),  Edudemic (which, among many other interesting items, has a list of the 20+ apps to know about in 2013) and Flipped Learning (which focuses on flipped classrooms or, as the blog writer prefers: flipped learning)

The idea of a flipped classroom/ flipped learning is quite fascinating. And not just because of its revolutionary educational idea. I feel the name is well chosen. What does flipped mean and where does it come from?

To flip can mean to throw or toss (usually imparting a spin) e.g. flip the hair out of your eyes or flip a coin. Flipping out means to go crazy while flipping over something means to get very excited about it. A flip is also an alcoholic beverage often including beaten eggs. Flipped is the name of  a 2001 young adult novel and the 2010 movie based on it. 

But in education, Flipped Learning basically means that students study at home and practice in class instead of the traditional other way around.

While trying to research the etymology of the word "flip" I was stumped by the fact that it was called an imitative or an abbreviation of flippant which itself is held to be an imitative. I was stumped because I did not know (and could not find) the difference between an imitative and an onomatopoeia. In the end, I sent out a request for help to the ETNI mailing list (English Teachers' Network of Israel)  which was answered by Izzy (Israel) Cohen . He forwarded my quest to James Harbeck who runs a daily blog on sound-symbolism called Sesquiotica. James promptly sent the following reply stating that apparently onomatopoeia is a sub-category of the more encompassing  "imitative" concept :


"Well, I'm not so used to seeing "imitative words" used per se as a concept in linguistics -- it seems to me that all onomatopoeia is imitative, but depending on context a person could make a case that a word can be imitative of something other than sound (the kind of sound symbolism and ideophones you get that may use high front sounds for small things and low back sounds for large things, for instance), or may be imitative of other words and thus not onomatopoeia per se. But for the most part I would expect to see "imitative words" used to refer to onomatopoeia, I'd think.

Ciao, James."

Thank you James.

Anyway, for all interested in learning more about flipped classrooms which most definitely do NOT imitate the traditional way of teaching :) take a look at the following links:
Flipped classrooms
http://www.knewton.com/flipped-classroom/
http://www.techsmith.com/flipped-classroom.html
http://www.thedailyriff.com/articles/how-the-flipped-classroom-is-radically-transforming-learning-536.php
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2H4RkudFzlc
http://flipped-learning.com/
vodcasting and flipped classroom
http://www.flippedclassroom.com/


And just as a final note:
lɯʇɥ˙dılɟ/ɯoɔ˙pɐɟʌǝɹ˙ʍʍʍ ʇɐ ʇno ʇı ʎɹʇ ˙noʎ ɹoɟ uʍop-ǝpıs-dn ʇı dılɟ llıʍ puɐ ʇxǝʇ ɹɐlnƃǝɹ ɹǝʇuǝ noʎ sʇǝl ʇɐɥʇ ǝʇısqǝʍ lnɟɹǝpuoʍ ɐ uǝʌǝ sı ǝɹǝɥʇ
http://www.revfad.com/flip.html

4 comments:

  1. Who would have thought of flipped as related to flippant?!
    It IS a fascinating way to have lessons!
    Naomi

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  2. The link of the flipped text did his way straight to my bookmark, though it's hard to tell how I would use it in class- if at all.
    Because I'm a fan of TED, I wanted to check out if they have any suggestions for a flipped classroom and I found this link http://blog.ted.com/2012/04/25/flip-it-a-new-way-to-teach-with-video-from-ted-ed/, which instructs how to create flip videos from TED lessons or even from YouTube including quizzes, dig deeper, and more. Worth to try!

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    Replies
    1. Moria, many thanks for this Url, i will DEFINITELY take a look at this. (when i have time)

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  3. This idea of the pupils studying at home and practice in class is certainly a very interesting concept. When I think about the way i practice bagruot - i am using this methodology. Sometimes I give the pupils an unseen to do home and then we discuss and practice other examples of particular questions answers in class. i know this is not exactly the same but there are certain similarities. However this would be something i could do to solve the problem of not having computers at school. the pupils could be URls of listening, grammar even vocab. they could go into them, - those with difficulties would have the opportunity to listen, watch more and then we could discuss / practice at school. Certainly needs thought.

    jenny

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