You may have noticed in the footer of this site the icons for a few Flipboard magazines. Flipboards are my go-to for collecting article, videos, and tutorials that I find on the internet about technologies and pedagogical ideas that intrigue me and I think others may be benefit from.
Flipboards are very easy to set up and manage. Of course, you’ll need to set up a FREE account at Flipboard.com, and once you have done that, you’ll need to add a bookmarklet to any browser you’ll be using. (I should mention that there is a mobile app for it, in fact, it was designed with mobile in mind.) Adding the bookmarklet is just a drag and drop from the site. There is also a tutorial at the bottom of the page if you need some pointers on how to start out.
Now it’s just a matter of organizing and curating. First, you’ll need to set up at least one magazine, but you can create any number of magazines that reflect your interests. In my case, I have collections for Mobile learning, Assessment, Writing Tools, Study Aids, and Presentation Applications, but then I have one all-encompassing magazine entitled, Instruction, where I have incorporated all of my single-topic magazines along with articles on instruction/pedagogy. While researching a topic, I may come across a web article on a new mobile application and I decide to “flip it”, which just means clicking the bookmarklet in my browser to add it to the Mobile Learning magazine. What is useful is that while I update Mobile Learning, Instruction gets updated automatically.
There are a few limitations to keep in mind. Flipboards will not allow you at this time to add .pdfs. Also, you are restricted to using the article’s original image or graphic, so customizing is not possible. You can, however, promote and demote items to the cover of the magazine for refreshing purposes.
What is nice about this tool is that you can share the web content you are following with your students, or share with the entire world, or just keep that content all to yourself. You can invite others to contribute to your magazine, as well. It’s very addictive! The pages are visually inviting although one criticism here is that on the computer the cover image fills the majority of the screen which forces the reader to scroll to get to the articles.
All in all, the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. At the very least, I can see flipboards used as a more appealing way than just a list of websites to send students to for web resources. Branching out, an instructor could set up a course magazine which students would co-curate. The magazine could live on after the course is over and students the following semester could continue to add to it. Lots of possibilities. Need more ideas? Read what other instructors from K-12 and beyond are doing with flipboards to get more ideas of how to use Flipboards for your own courses.