It has been a couple of days since we finished up with FlipCon13.  Aaron and I reflected after it ended that this was the best one yet.  I first want to give a shout-out to all those who made it happen.  The sponsors, volunteers, staff, presenters, and the site crew in Stillwater were amazing.  I truly enjoyed spending time meeting everybody hearing your stories.  

In terms of sessions:  My goal was to sit in as many of them as possible and learn from our awesome presenters.  The ones I was able to attend were great.  I was struck with a few things:

• So many of the sessions focused in on how important it is to foster relationships in the classroom:  Whether it is between teacher and student or between student and student.  

• Many of the sessions took the ideas we started with in 2007 and adapted, and even better, expanded on our work.  We certainly never thought about gamifying the Flipped Class, or doing peer-instruction with the flipped class.  

• Our presenters have truly made the transition from Flipped Class 101 to Flipped Learning.

• The growing body of research was highlighted in our research strand and once we get more data, I predict that Flipped Learning will grow even more exponentially.  As of a couple of days ago the Literature Review we published on Monday of the conference had over 1.2 million hits.  Clearly this will expand the reach of Flipped Learning once we show how efficacious it is in increasing student achievement.

In terms of my personal practice:  I will be changing how I do sessions in the future.  Since I am not longer in the classroom, I see my role as being the Flipped Learning Evangelist or maybe it’s storyteller.  Thus, I  want to continue to tell the stories of Flipped Class educators on this website and on my Radio Show:  The Flip Side. 

I’m looking forward to staying in contact in the future.  If you would like to tell me your story and don’t mind being on the “radio” I would enjoy chatting with you.  

Jon