flippity

Mr. Steve Fortna is a Spanish teacher who created flippity.net.  He alerted Richard Byrne who reviewed it in his technology blog, which is read by Melissa Rollosson who spread the word to her middle school teachers, and to me. I decided to try it for myself.

Flippity.net simply provides a Google Sheets template for making and publishing flashcards.  For example, I made this set of Flashcards on some of our American Presidents.  According to Richard Byrne, Google provides different templates to do this same sort of thing,  but, they aren't as easy to work with as Flippity.   I didn't try the Google provided templates out myself, but, Flippity was pretty easy. Indeed--I just experienced a few minor "hiccups."

First, if, upon reading this review,  you decide to try Flippity, be sure to go to flippity.net (dot com will take you to the wrong site).

As you read the directions it says to "make a copy of this template"--that won't be difficult, because once you click on the hyperlink, making a copy is your only option.  As it says, make sure you are already signed in to your Google Account.  Next, after glancing at the spreadsheet, you'll understand that you should replace the text that is there with your own terms and definitions.  You can make the list longer or shorter, change the colors--it's pretty self-explanatory.

The creator of Flippity, Steve Fortna, has obviously gone to some trouble to try to make his directions as simple and brief as possible.  However, in making it so concise, a potential user might be a bit puzzled at this next step--publishing the cards and getting the link.  As you follow the directions  you go to a site where you get a  link and then you might wonder why you copy that link and get a second link.  The first link (which you copy) if followed, merely takes you back to a published version of the spreadsheet--not to the flashcards.  After you click the tab on the bottom or your spreadsheet, and paste in the copied link where directed, then you get a link  which your students can follow to get to the flashcards.  (You may want to use goo.gl to shorten that link.--for more on goo.gl click here.)

In summary,  Flippity is a elegantly simple way to make flashcards for your students.

A few additional comments.  While making these flashcards you create a spreadsheet in your Google Drive.  By default, if you go back and make changes your flashcards automatically update.  In the sample there are examples of images which appear on the web and can be included on the cards--as well as a YouTube which seems to get by our filter just fine (YouTube videos used in Flippity MUST already come through the YouTube EDU filter).  If you want to include either of these types of things and have questions--how to do it is further explained in the Frequently Asked Question section.  Students have the option of viewing and printing the cards in two columns, as a fill in the blank quiz, or as a matching quiz. I also note that in an the antiquated version of Firefox on a school desktop, flippity didn't work...once updated...no problem.  Finally, you'll note that Flippity also provides a template for making a Jeopardy style game.