How I Use Flipboard as an Educator
Educators / April 13, 2015
When Flipboard invited magazine readers to create their own magazines, I jumped on the bandwagon and immediately began compiling my own. Most of my magazines are targeted for the education field. I believe Flipboard is the perfect tool for educators to create magazines for themselves, their students and colleagues. Here is how Flipboard can be used by educators.
- Collect and share information with students
Educators can search Flipboard to find content on any topic, then flip (add) that content into a magazine, and then share that magazine with their students. I curate content on that pesky topic of copyright in a magazine I call Beg, Borrow, Steal, for teachers to use and share with students. Targeted magazines like this allow educators to provide students with specific information and saves students time that they would otherwise spend searching for content.
- Collaborate with colleagues
My colleague Jeff Rothenberger and I recently presented at a professional development event for an iPad implementation program. I showed educators how to create their own Flipboard magazines which led to a discussion about collaboration. Jeff used Flipboard’s “Invite Contributors” feature to invite me to add content to his magazine, Governor Mifflin iPad Apps. This feature allows multiple curators to flip content into one magazine. With this method of co-curating, educators would reduce the time spent finding content on their own.
- Save conference resources
Educators can curate Flipboard magazines for conferences by adding content from the web related to the event. This includes article, videos, photos, slides, tweets and more. Items posted online can be added to a conference magazine whether or not the curator is in attendance. After the conference, the magazine can be used as a historical document and as a resource for educators who want to review what happened at a later date. I created a magazine for the Pete&C 2015 Conference. In this magazine I added resources that were shared, the keynote speaker’s presentation, and links to images, videos and tweets.
- Grow professionally
Like most educators, I want to stay current. I use Flipboard magazines to drive my own professional development. I use the Flipboard search feature to find already created magazines on topics I am interested in. I then click on the “follow option” to add the magazine to my Flipboard reading list. Magazines such as “Blended Learning” and “Flipped Classroom” help me stay current.
There are many more ways Flipboard magazines can be used by educators. I plan to explore more ideas in the future and hope to share them as I do. If you are an educator (or even a student) who is discovering Flipboard for the first time, I highly recommend signing up and launching your own magazines. To get you started the Flipboard Club has created a User Guide magazine with a collection of helpful instructions.
For more insight, join the Flipboard Chat group on Facebook (newbies are welcome) or participate in #FlipboardChat — a Twitter chat held every Wednesday at 10pm Eastern (7pm Pacific). You may also showcase your magazines on Fridays using the hashtag #FlipboardFriday.
Here is my profile on Flipboard. Let’s connect and collaborate to make great magazines for students and the education community.
Marcelle McGhee is a K-12 education advocate. This post originally appeared on Medium and is re-printed here with her permission. Click here for a list of guest posts and more information about the FlipEDU program.
