Asynchronous Thin Slides with a Dash of Flipgrid

Thin Slides might actually be my favorite of all the EDUProtocols. It's quick, easy and it gets all students listening and speaking in a short amount of time. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced us to evolve the way we teach and EDUProtocols are no different. The beauty of EDUProtocols is that they are highly adaptable. 

In distance learning, a buzzword, one we hardly ever used before, is asynchronous. I've said this word more times in the last 10 months that I ever in the previous 15 years of my teaching career. Asynchronous lessons have become something most of us have to plan for each week. Normally, Thin Slides is done live and as part of synchronous lesson, but I have an idea for facilitating this activity asynchronously.

Before we jump into how to do it asynchronously, here are the steps for how I adapted it for synchronous lessons in distance learning.

1. Create a template Assignment in Google Classroom and add the basic Thin Slides instructions

2. Click Create, select slides and create a template for students to put their one picture and one word. Make a copy for each student.

3. When kids are finished building their slide, open the Assignment on the teacher end of Google Classroom, share your screen and you can quickly scroll through each kids' submission. Students unmute to do their 5-7 second micro-presentation when their slide appears on the Zoom. Click here to read my blogpost that shows how to do this in greater detail.

My idea for asynchronous Thin Slides takes the steps listed above and adds Flipgrid to the mix. 

Below is an example of a template slide for students to put their one picture and one word. The beauty of this is that you can reuse this assignment over and over without having to recreate slides. Each time you simply edit the topic.

Here is where the asynchronous Thin Slides adds Flipgrid to the mix. Open a new tab and go to your Flipgrid account. Create a new topic, title it and add instructions for the kids to use the Flipgrid screen record function to record themselves presenting their slide.

Normally, in Thin Slides, students have 5-7 seconds to present, but the minimum in a Flipgrid topic is 15 seconds. Be sure to keep Topic Moderation turned off so kids can see each other's videos.

After setting up your topic, add the link to the Google Classroom assignment.

On the student end, after building their slide and recording their micro-presentation with Flipgrid screen record, they will watch their classmates videos and leave comments. Do this so students can see the different takeaways and ideas classmates have.

To hold them accountable, set a rule that they must comment on at least three classmates who had a different takeaway or idea as them.

Thin Slides is such a versatile activity and can be adapted in a myriad of ways. How might you use it asynchronously? If you have any questions and would like a follow up, contact me via Gmail or Chat at ajuarez@techcoachjuarez.com. 

My book, The Complete EdTech Coach: An Organic Approach to Digital Learning, co-authored with my wife Katherine Goyette is now available on Amazon. Click here to purchase. It is published by Dave Burgess Publishing. Be sure to follow the hashtag #OrganicEdTech and #CVTechTalk for updates.