FLIP Camera

I am getting one as part of my job to use with students. What experiences do you all have with them? How have you used them in your classroom and with your students? Please share.

I posted a Blog Post as well so please share it there, so visitors there can see your ideas as well.

http://edutechintegration.blogspot.com/2009/12/flip-camera.html

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Permalink Reply by Matt Gleeson on December 19, 2009 at 5:09pm

Attended a conference recently where a service working with marginalised young people described a project where they had the young people film and produce films about road rules. The premise was that theseyoung people were preparing to get there drivers licence and therefore learnt more about the road rules while crafting messages for there peers. The project was then published to a website. I will try and track down the site and post the link.

Cheers

Matt

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Permalink Reply by Eric Holshoe on December 19, 2009 at 7:16pm

I have one. Very easy to use. Check out Digital Wish. They are selling them 2/1 for school use. I use the Flipshare software and Animoto to create videos.

digitalwish.com

animoto.com/education/

Hope this helps.

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Permalink Reply by Janine on December 19, 2009 at 9:26pm

I have almost always had kids act things out to form better understanding of language, words, historical moments and math word/story problems. So, now that I have some access to a Flip camera, I filmed some kids acting out their solutions to a word problem about two friends sharing a cab ride. They had a hard time figuring out what a fair ride share price would be. They loved watching themselves over and over afterwards. However, I found that it could still be used even more than that when I made that set of video clips (they had to film it in segments in order to get all of their thinking and acting documented) available to other kids who had trouble solving that problem. They imported it to Movie Maker (a weak PC version of iMovie :) and then could voice over explanations or possible wrong turns in a solver's thinking, and they could insert titles, marquees etc. to clarify their strategies and mathematical reasoning. It creates a very focused group of editors. :)

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Permalink Reply by Donna Murdoch on December 20, 2009 at 7:59am

Love the Flip, but agree with Eric about using clips for Animoto. Although you can use individual frames as photos if necessary (which works best with the HD edition), Animoto will now integrate 30 second video clips, which really adds a great dimension to the presentations. It really looks great.
The portability and easy of use make the Flip an ideal tool for education. If you are on a Mac, by the way, and want to use iMovie for editing (as opposed to the native Flip software that comes with it) you can drag the video on to your desk top and then inport into iMovie. Only mentioning because many students are more familiar with that program if they are playing with it themselves.

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Permalink Reply by Sally Smith on December 20, 2009 at 9:18am

Just purchased the JVC.... heard it was better than the flip. So far seems to be confusing for the kids to operate?? Anyone have any thoughts???

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Permalink Reply by Donna Murdoch on December 20, 2009 at 9:22am

Hi Sally, what makes the Flip so special is its pop out USB connection and instant connection to software and your desktop - does the JVC have that? I don't know the camera. Whether or not a camera is better for you depends on what you intend to use it for. Possibly "better" meant more pixels, better battery life, better value, better zoom - the reason people flip about the FLIP is because it has barely anything at all except ease of use in every way (and possibly size, again, don't know the JVC.) No I am not a commercial :) Just a Flip user.

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Permalink Reply by Caren Kimbarovsky on December 20, 2009 at 1:52pm

The flip camera is great to use. Students can create PSA (public service announcements), showing what a concept means or creating vocabulary videos like BrainyFlix. Just remember that connecting the flip camera takes up space in the way the usb connection happens. Therefore, if you want to connect a flip to a macbook and your usb connections are on one side, you might want a usb hub in order to connect more than one usb item.

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Permalink Reply by Mary Cooch on December 20, 2009 at 3:08pm

I'm really interested in this as I've just ordered myself a flip camera for Christmas with a view to seeing its use with children. I was wondering though what file formats it makes - I thought it was mp4 which doesn't work in MovieMaker - do you have to convert them first?

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Permalink Reply by Michael Zimmer on December 20, 2009 at 7:59pm

Thanks for all the tips and information. I am sure I and the teachers will love it.....It is way better than the Mini DV's we were trying to use...that is for sure, and you can get two for the same price.....and never buy any tapes.

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Permalink Reply by Donna Murdoch on December 20, 2009 at 8:29pm

Michael, one tip with Flips that I found out by calling to ask - one assumes that after you download the film, it is erased from the hard drive (1 hour's worth of film) on the Flip. I couldn't figure out why it still told me the disk was full. Evidently you have to be sure to delete the video from the FLIP's hard drive once you've downloaded it (it doesn't happen automatically) to clear up the drive for another hour's worth of filming. You have to do that on the computer while you're plugged in, it can't be done on the Flip without being plugged in. Enjoy! You will love it!