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Promote student choice using Flipgrid, HyperDocs and Hapara Workspace

Last spring, Flipgrid started showing up all over my Twitter feed. Prior to #FlipgridFever, it seemed like every other tweet I saw had something or other to do with HyperDocs. So what is it about Flipgrid and HyperDocs that educators find so appealing? I think the draw is that they can be used to empower students by providing them with voice and choice in the classroom which, in turn, leads to increased engagement. For teachers already using Hapara Workspace, where do tools like Flipgrid and HyperDocs fit in when promoting student choice?

Promote student choice with Flipgrid and Workspace

With Flipgrid, teachers add a grid (basically a class) and post some topics or questions. Students then click on a link to get to the grid and reply to the topics or questions with short video clips that are shared to the grid. If a teacher has students who are not yet comfortable with speaking up in front of the rest of the class, Flipgrid can be used as a scaffold to make sure that all student voices get heard. So, what is the best way to lead the students into Flipgrid?

Well, in Hapara Workspace, teachers can create a card in the Resources or Evidence column and include a link to the Flipgrid they’ve created for their students. Workspace gives a nice jumping off point for students to get to Flipgrid, and linking from Workspace also helps students see their Flipgrid responses in the larger context of a learning cycle that includes standards, as well as a rubric for how their Flipgrid response can be assessed.

Promote student choice with HyperDocs and Workspace

HyperDocs isn’t a tool per say—really, it’s more of an idea; and the idea is this: teachers can facilitate learning by engaging students in the 5E’s (engage, explore, explain, extend, and evaluate) via links on a Google Docs, Slides, or Sheets file to all kinds of different online resources. With a HyperDoc, students have a great deal of choice over which resources they explore, and a great strategy for teachers to employ is to give their students a voice in selecting resources that are added to the HyperDoc. Since teachers and students using Hapara Workspace can already post a variety of links to a  Workspace with resource cards, should they be using HyperDocs as well? ‘

The answer to that question depends on how the teacher feels the content they are linking to should best be organized to meet the needs of their students. If there’s just a few links, posting them to Workspace as cards is sufficient; but as the list of resources grows, organizing them in a HyperDoc and then linking to the HyperDoc from a Workspace card might be the better option. Students can sometimes get overwhelmed with the volume of resources in a Workspace or HyperDoc, which can make the grouping feature in Workspace extremely helpful as well. Getting in the habit of asking your students what is working best for them and adjusting your use of Workspace and Hyperdocs to meet their needs is a great way to give your students a voice in the classroom as well.

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