Flipgrid in the World Language Class: Fall 2020 Updates

If you’ve been around my blog for long, you know I love Flipgrid. I wrote a whole series about it last year! With social distancing in the classroom and remote learning, Flipgrid is a powerful tool, now more than ever. They’ve got some great new updates too. Here’s a quick overview.

New Names & Organization Options

Flipgrid renamed “Grids” to “Groups”. “Topics” got to keep their name. Here’s the cool part: you can now make a Topic outside of a Grid/Group. You can quickly create stand-alone topics and control who can access them. You can also restrict access to individual student emails. If you wanted an on-going topic with one student (for weekly check-ins during remote learning, a video journal, or portfolio of speaking proficiency for example), you can easily control access.

New Student Video Options

Flipgrid is back with new filters and frames for the world language classroom. They also added gifs and, my favorite, boards. Yes, boards. Students can split the video screen in half and make half of it a whiteboard. I love the look of it! They also added more text fonts and styles.

Screen Recording

The heavens opened and the angels sang, “Screen recording is here on Flipgrid!” This is great for remote learning. If your students are already familiar with Flipgrid, now they have an easy way to record their screens, present their work, or collaborate with classmates!

Flipgrid + Canvas

I recently integrated Flipgrid with Canvas LMS assignments. That means students don’t need to log in or use codes anymore. They can access and record directly from Canvas. The Topics are also connected to Canvas so they cannot be accessed unless they are opened through the Canvas assignment. Hello extra security! I’ve done a test run with students and it went pretty smoothly. I plan to push out my Flipgrids to students using Canvas from now on.

Want to learn more about Canvas LMS? Check out my blog series about Canvas or Canvas Course for Beginners.

Coming Soon

Flipgrid also says that they are opening up text-only commenting on videos which I think will be handy. Their website says it’s coming “Fall 2020”. Here’s hoping it’s soon! Check out the Flipgrid blog for more info on new features that are ready to use now and some that are coming soon!

So how will you be using Flipgrid this year? Comment below!