Flipped learning has been rapidly gaining popularity among teachers around the world. Various digital tools can help teachers create, curate, and deliver content that students can experience at their own pace, freeing up classroom time for clarification, exploration, and discussion. On 11th September 2020, the School of Education organized a webinar entitled “Flipped Classroom: The Three Essential Digital Tools” to introduce several useful tools for flipped learning to educators. The guest speaker was Dr. Umawathy A/P Techanamurthy, Senior Assistant Director, Instructional & Digital Learning Division, Department of Polytechnic and Community College Education, Ministry of Higher Education, Malaysia. The participants consisted of educators from local and international educational institutions.
Dr. Uma introduced three basic tools: EdPuzzle, Screencast-O-Matic and Flipgrid, for flipped learning. She explained the crucial features of each tool and provided useful tips on how to maximize the potential of these tools for effective flipped learning. She demonstrated how questions, notes and audio files could be inserted into EdPuzzle. The participants were also exposed to the way to record short video clips using Screencast-O-Matic. Finally, Dr. Uma explained how teachers could integrate Flipgrid into teaching to promote interactions between the school community. The participants interacted actively with the guest speaker to discuss the functionality and application issues of the tools.
Next, the special guest, Daniel Shen, introduced a new educational mobile learning app, Soqqle to the participants. This app integrates the features of Instagram and Tik Tok for educational purposes. Soqqle is currently being pilot tested in a few Asian countries such as Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. This is a potential app to promote social cognitive learning among students. The webinar ended at 11.30am with a summary and words of appreciation for the guest speakers and participants for their support.