TeachEm is a free and user friendly digital tool that allows users to capture YouTube content, organize it, and add time stamped flashcards to guide the learning. It's simple, smart and efficient which makes it a good tool for busy teachers interested in implementing a Flipped Classroom instructional model.
Teachers can sign up for a free account with an email address and create a school. The school is not meant to be the school that employs you, it is supposed to be "The School of You". Once you've created your school, you can create classes of organized YouTube videos fairly easily.
To create a class just copy and paste links from your own collection of pre-selected YouTube videos or use the built in search feature to find and preview videos without leaving the TeachEm site. Add timestamped flashcards to associate text with specific parts of a video. Create public classes to share with the world, or create private classes that can even include videos that are not publicly available on YouTube. The TeachEm site hosts a very nice set of TeachEm FAQs, created with their own tool, to help users learn to use it.
When students participate in a TeachEm class they simply click on a flashcard and the timestamped video will jump to the associated spot. They can flip the flashcards for more information or to get the answers to questions. As they watch the videos and respond to the prompts on the flashcards, they can also type their own SmartNotes.
The set of Flashcards and SmartNotes can be emailed as live links which open to specific parts of the videos when clicked. Although I didn't find any features for embedding a class, you could copy and paste the set of live links into your own online learning platform or website for quick and easy student access.
Uses in the Classroom:
- Use TeachEm to create levels of differentiated classes on specific topics to provide students with access to content to meet their instructional needs.
- Design student-driven learning activities to deliver content with TeachEm, then require students to create something original based on the learning.
- Create your own instructional videos and use them in place of traditional lectures to maximize instructional time and give students a chance to use the pause and rewind buttons to take the learning at their own pace.
My Wish List:
- The ability to record sound and insert links into flashcards would make this a more powerful tool for meeting the needs of all learners and providing students with flexible options for responding to the video content.
- It would be useful to be able to easily embed a class into a website or online learning platform for quick and easy student access.
Try TeachEm at teachem.com.
