Flipgrid is an interesting application for asynchronous communication. It was developed by the LT Media Lab at the University of Minnesota. Flipgrid allows a teacher (or account holder) to post a short written question and students can answer that question with a video message that is limited to 90 seconds. All the video responses end up in a grid which makes it visually very attractive and very easy to listen to what your colleagues have to say.

The tool works as follows: after your registration you create a grid and then you can add questions/discussion prompts to your grid. With a free account you can set up 4 grids (think classes or goups of students) and you can add as many questions as you like to each grid. The number of video responses is also unlimited.

Every question generates a URL that allows you to invite your students via e-mail. Of course you can also paste the url on your website, blog or LMS. You have the option to secure the grid with a password if you want to control the access. It’s also possible to moderate the incoming videos before they get publicized in the grid. You decide whether students can share their videos ouside of Flipgrid on blogs, Facebook and/or Twitter.

The students you invite don’t need an account. First they click the link and the big plus sign. Then they allow the tool to access the microphone and webcam. With the webcam they have to take a snapshot that will function as a kind of identification on the grid. Now they can start recording. If they’re satisfied (you can listen to what you did), they submit the video. To do so they have to type their name and e-mailaddress.

We’ ve started a Taccle2 grid so you can try the application from a student’s perspective:

http://flipgrid.com/#52a24227

http://flipgrid.com/#2a772439

Let us know what you think.

This post is also available in: Dutch