I recently purchased a device called ‘Swivl’ for school and I thought I would take the time to write a quick post about it.
‘Swivl’ is a used to film lessons or other activities for use with the flipped classroom or lesson observations.
The device sits on a tripod and has a slot for you to put your iPhone or iPod Touch into it. You can then put the microphone/sensor around your neck and the device will swivel round and follow you as you walk around the classroom. It pretty cool and staff and students were impressed with the tech.
It is a great device that is very useful if you want to film your lessons, especially if you have a teacher that walks around a lot, like me. It also has a free App that that optimises the experience.
As you will see from the video below, you should check the white balance as you can hardly see what is on the whiteboard. I should have really had a look before I started filming, leaving the classroom light on would have helped. It is also fairly pricey at about £175. I got mine from: http://www.techinvasion.co.uk/
There is another issue too. If you are walking around the camera follows you, which is fine. However, I make lots of small movements so the camera can be a little jerky. Probably something just to be mindful of when you are using it I suppose. Update: A representative of Techinvasion read this post and kindly emailed me with some guidance. He let me know that there is a ‘Sport Mode’ which is there for just this reason.
Overall, I think it is really good. It is very easy to set up and will certainly improve the filming and sharing the lessons.
Have a look at the video and make up your own mind. Sorry about the rubbish commentary. It has been a long day. 🙂
mattbritland.com 
Matt – not sure why you would want a swivi for Flipped lessons – after all – you are not going to be presenting to a classroom – so you would have little problem simply setting up a camera and letting it run….
However, for recording what you get up to in class – now that sounds real swell.
BW
As always – enjoying the blog
Record part of a lesson and share with anyone who missed it and for those students who were there and would like a recap. Thanks for your comment. 🙂
Yup – absolutely – but for the truly flipped classroom – we are talking video for all students – for viewing at home BEFORE the main lesson right?
Yep…that right…but other thing works too.
You still may want to film in a traditional classroom setting, even for the flipped classroom.
You are of course absolutely right – but at least I am one of your more active readers! Will (soon) have some work on My Digital World to share with you from Year 9s – at the Evaluation stage – and after that will ask the students to take on board what their peers (and I) have shared with them…
Very small class – one of the students has 6 evaluation forms completed… out of a possible 9!
The google forms has a great little summary option – here is a grab of the first 3 responses.
http://s1192.photobucket.com/user/DavidBrianOrchard/media/ScreenShot2013-10-07at212406_zps91dd97b8.png.html
“I’ve only got one student in my group!” nice one
reminds me of Crash Course world History – watch the first 1 minute if you haven’t done so before…
I really like this as a piece of technology and I can see how it would fit in flipped clasrooms, maybe even using the footage in a lesson a year down the line when you revisit a SOW.
However I’m not sure how welcomed this would be in many schools whilst the ‘fear’ of filming and photos still exists.
I see your point. It would be the job of SLT to make the teacher feel safe and confident about it.
If it was for observation purposes, it may only be two people who watch it.
🙂
If the main subject is u – the teacher – so what?
It’s presumably not being uploaded as a live feed LOL