Nerding out Extend

Wow, I had no idea it was that easy for just about anyone to make and up load a video in response to a prompt. Today’s Extend asked us to make a short video about something we are passionate about, something that makes us Nerdy.

I chose to talk about my love of the online browser game, Travian. I have played this game for nine years and every day for more that 3 years. I even have a youtube channel of instructional video about the game which have been viewed by people in 120 countries. If you are interested, you can find the link to the International English server here https://www.travian.com/international (link opens in new tab).

But as fun as it was to talk about something I love, the learning piece was finding out about Flipgrid. An online service for educators that  is crazy easy to use. It took me less than 10 minutes to record and upload a short video and all the recording software was part of the site. It got me thinking about ways this could be used in the classroom and the ease at which students could participate. I even got to create a selfie with stickers to act as the front page for my video!! Check it out for yourself at https://info.flipgrid.com/

Here is screenshot of my video listing long with a couple others posted by Extenders!

It can feel risky to make a video and put it out there. It can be uncomfortable to see yourself in a video and hear what you sound like. This is yet another way to stretch and extend. If we, as educators, want to ask our students to take risks, we should be willing to ourselves.