#FlipboardChat Summary: How Students Can Use Flipboard Magazines

Jenn de la Vega / September 2, 2015

Every Wednesday evening, members of the Flipboard Club—an unofficial group of passionate evangelists—hold a Twitter chat about a Flipboard-centric topic. We share the tips and ideas discussed there each week. Join in the chat at 7pm PT / 10pm ET via the #FlipboardChat hashtag on Twitter. If the time zone doesn’t work for you, join this Facebook group to stay in the loop.

Last week, participants chatted about “How Students Can Use Flipboard Magazines.“ Here’s what they said:

How can curating online content help students learn?

• Students use the web for research, a Flipboard Magazine makes collecting content so much easier!
• Curating online content allows students to dive deeper into topics and find credible sources.
• You get so many perspectives and points of views when you search online. You can get a full picture of an issue.
• Curating online magazines provides students with research, collaboration, and critical thinking skills. They’re also engaging!
• Textbooks are limited and increasingly not updated due to cost. Flipboard is free, supports multimedia and is current.
• It’s a way to control the www world wild west. You can share the good stuff and filter out the ick.
• Students can also add their own commentary/notes.
• Students can gain greater vocabulary and reading skills by curating.

How can students benefit from using Flipboard, specifically?

• Specifically, it’s device agnostic so no child is left behind.
• Flipboard is the best product out there for students. Easy to use, and so nice to look at it engages students even more.
• Keep on top of current events, share relevant and interesting articles with others, see what teachers read
• I love using Flipboard to find information from blogs and sources I’m not familiar with. So you don’t get funnel vision.
• It’s a staple in the bring your own device classroom. Ease of flexibility.
• They learn about each other in a totally new way. Flipboard shows how smart and interesting kids are.
• Makes learning fun and gives a sense of accomplishment, creativity.
• Simple to use, so you spend less on learning tech & more on learning content. Very engaging look on any device.
• I used it as a way for students to share current events with one another.
• Students see more of each other, feel they know each other better.
• It’s totally engaging and is perfect for the last level of S.A.M.R model for tech integration in instruction.
• It’s so easy to use no matter what device you have: desktop, phone, iPad, etc. Literally one of Flipboard’s best features.
• Some kids learn more “visually”, so Flipboard is a perfect platform for that.  
• My oldest son just learned all the US states and capitals. Could have curated a mag with various maps, etc.

How can students use Flipboard magazines to prepare for exams and skills tests?

• Students can add relevant blogs and videos related to the study material. Think of it as an interactive study guide.
• Students can create separate study mags for specific trouble topics. Ex: I would make a mag full of Calculus resources.
• Flipboard = 21st Century Flashcards on Steroids!
• Students could use the audio features for foreign language test prep. I wish had it in my Spanish classes
• They can also share resources they found helpful to group mags, and post/answer questions in the comments section.
• Teachers can use magazines to Differentiate instruction to ELL and ESL students by adding voice and videos of lectures.

How can Flipboard magazines help boost classroom projects?

• It allows interactivity on lots of material, that works better than email/texting/Groupme/etc.
• Students can co-curate mags, share research to a common magazine and benefit from working together.
• Flipboard gives your projects life. You can add recent information, videos, images, GIFs, audio.
• Learning to work as part of a team is one of the MOST important skills a student can acquire!
• Econ teacher @johnnysideways uses Mags to spark conversation, class browses and finds a story to discuss.
• Helps groups stay organized with researching if they’re busy with individual sports/clubs activities & can’t always meet.

What topics and sources on Flipboard would you recommend students follow?

• The education topic! Also, the topics of whatever subjects you’re studying.
• For college students, news sources that match their majors. Knowing current topics is as important as classroom material.
• That depends on their grade or what they’re studying. Even college students need to be pointed to reliable sources.
• Connecting Soundcloud to make playlists really engages them!
• For Elementary Students a teacher can curate a magazine of sight words or home science labs to extend learning.
• Researching for campus journalism is big too, topics for peers like cyberbullying, study skills seem useful.

What are some ways students on Flipboard can interact and collaborate?

• Co-curated magazines are perfect for classes. I have used them for Journalism classes. Now that they can be private — wow!
• Get together with classmates and tackle a subject and take a deep dive.
• Students can curate Augmented reality tags in Flipboard and use them as presentation components for explanation of topics.
• Like belonging to chess club, kids can make their own collaborative topic-specific mags.
• Some groups are naturals for collaboration; Robotics clubs, sport teams, debate, etc.
• Students can curate personal magazines and share them on Parent night. Make movie theater style posters of their mags.

When should students manage their privacy on Flipboard, and how can they?

• ALWAYS!
• Students should be taught to manage both privacy and social media reputation management for ALL Apps!
• If students are working in a competition, they can use private magazines until it’s time to unveil them.
• I think that for pre-HS, mags should be private. In HS or college, students may want a public, but teacher should moderate.
• Off campus we see students use Flipboard for family communications. Often those are good to keep private.
• Teachers are in charge of safety, that should be done all the time. Can’t stress it enough.

What can students do with Flipboard magazines for fun, outside of school?

• Sports! And hobbies. What do you like? Search for it on Flipboard. It’s probably a Topic, which makes it easy to curate.
• Make highlights of videos and send them to college coaches.
• Senior Memories magazine.
• You can make a travel magazine or one about recipes (if you enjoy cooking). Arts and crafts, family photos. Many more!
• If I was still in high school, it would be a magazine about new/new-to-us music.
• Outside of school, college kids can use mags to highlight their clubs, fraternities, sororities, sports teams, etc.
• If they search & don’t find a subject mag they can start their own.
• HS Students should explore using Flipboard to curate and distribute their multimedia resume !
• It’s a good way for students to begin building & displaying their own portfolios — art, photography, writing, etc
• Photos are a big part of self-expression. Here’s one student’s passion for photography.
• When you tell students they can add their Instagram, they go nuts.

Don’t forget to join the #FlipboardChat this week. Start chatting on Twitter at 7pm PT / 10pm ET, or come back to this blog for an update.

~jdlv on behalf of the Flipboard Club

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