♪Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes,
♪How do you measure, measure a year?
（ “seasons of Love” from the musical Rent ）

With just 3 days to go to finish this year, this song came to my mind, which got me thinking “How do I measure a year?”. Travelling, job, meeting people, there are several ways of doing so, but how about learning?

When I thought about what I have learned this year, the first thing that popped up was moving my blog to Word press by copying and transferring my old blog, getting a new server and designing new blog with simple coding (see “3 reasons to move a blog to WordPress”). Although some problems occurred to the site later on, I could somehow managed to fix it.

I didn’t know anything about how to do all of these, but it was made possible through YouTube videos. Nowadays, there are tons of lecture videos out there, and the good thing about video over the texts is that it’s really easy to understand because of actual images.
(I also learned how to fix flat tires through YouTube this year and I want to learn more about bicycle.)

By looking back at my past, I have learned many things by watching YouTube over and over, and practicing and making a lot of mistakes. These include how to teach skiing and swimming, breakdance, how to sharpen knife, how to Install wall anchors, etc.

Well, the point is, you really get to know theories of doing something new through watching video lecture, and learn how to do it by actually doing and making mistakes (and sometimes go back to theories). I believe that’s the nature of learning.

And this idea is incorporated within school education as “Flipped-Learning“: instead of teaching theories in classroom and assign practices at home, children learn theories through videos at home and practice in classroom. The benefit of this is that learners can understand theories at their own pace and practice and ask questions in classroom.

The concern about Flipping-Learning is whether or not you can use it in many subjects. Interestingly, there already exist some video on how to use Flipped-Learning, including “Flipped-Learning Toolkit” From Edutopia. Then I came across with this video titled “The Flipped Class: Is Flipping for Everyone?” It explains that teachers can use Flipped-Learning not only for math or science but also for language, social science and physical education.

Even though there already exist many lecture videos on YouTube, teachers can make their own videos since they have to explain anyway either in classroom or video (With smartphone, making video and post on YouTube is really easy to do).

When it comes to the connection issue (rural area or developing countries), I think innovative devices like the one below (free data provider without internet) can support the implementation of Flipped-Classroom (introduced in this blog)
【Introducing Lantern: One Device = Free Data Forever】

Also, this flipping idea can be used in jobs or daily life. In a seminar, workshop or presentation, have you felt like you’ve spent too much time on listening to or doing a long explanation, which ended up having only a short amount of time practicing or asking questions? (I have) I think flipping strategy may solve this kind of case.

Tell me, I’ll forget. Show me, I’ll remember. Involve me, I’ll understand (Chinese proverb)

Thanks for reading and have a great new year!