Announcing Flipgrid One (now free to all teachers)

But, it’s not just the platform; it’s the people.

The Flipgrid team, like several other developers I’ve met in the past couple of years, is committed to solutions that truly work for K12. They seek teacher feedback and suggestions. They listen. (They visited me in New Jersey. They presided over Andy’s award ceremony.) And we see their commitment in each new version/redesign.

Just in case you haven’t been following closely, here are some of Flipgrid’s new capabilities:

1. Availability for Android.

2. Variable response lengths: In the past responses were limited to 90 seconds. Teachers now have the flexibility to customized response lengths from 30 seconds to three minutes.

3. Grid covers: ability to attractively brand your grids to distinguish them easily

3. Feedback: Using a subscription to Flipgrid Classroom, teachers can now offer students direct, individualized feedback, by clicking on any student response video, and rating it quantitatively and/or sharing comments.

4. Ability to duplicate: Teachers can now duplicate grids for their multiple classes or sections, move responses around among topics.

5. Partnerships with Microsoft Education (@Microsoft_Edu) and Skype in the Classroom (@SkypeClassroom)

6. Featuring: Teachers can highlight or promote particular thoughtful student responses, perhaps to present a worthy model. It is now possible to  You feature one or more student responses, bringing them to the top of the page by clicking the star next to the topic or response.

7. Glance view: It’s easier to watch and review Flipgrid videos from a mobile device using Glance. The feature automatically plays videos as you scroll, allowing you to catch up more easily.

8. Video transcription, coming soon, now in BETA

But here’s today’s big news:

While I’ve been happy to pay the modest $65 annual subscription that allows me access to all features for unlimited grids and topics and class management features, it’s always a concern that not every teacher can easily offer opportunities like Flipgrid to their learners.

After one of our recent Flipgrid PreK to PhD educator community meetings, Flipgrid CEO and co-founder Jim Leslie responded to this concern with a major announcement. Every teacher can now have access to one free grid–Flipgrid One. Each grid can host unlimited topics and an unlimited number of student responses.

Jim’s announcement discussed our last meeting and an important gift for educators:

Today, we’re announcing Flipgrid One, a free, single-grid version of Flipgrid that allows any teacher to engage her or his class in the Flipgrid experience and empower student voice. Flipgrid One teachers can have as many topics and student responses in their grid as they like. All the affordances necessary to safely and fully engage students are thoughtfully integrated within Flipgrid One: password-protection, moderation, transcripts, free iOS and Android apps, and more.

Flipgrid Classroom, modestly priced at $65 for individual subscriptions allows teachers to manage unlimited grids (for multiple classes or purposes), topics, responses, and replies, the ability to feature student responses and Teachers who use Flipgrid in multiple classes and/or want to have more control over their Flipgrid experience will use Flipgrid Classroom. Priced at $65 for individual subscriptions and $400 for 10-packs, Flipgrid Classroom enables teachers to create and manage unlimited grids, topics, responses, and replies-to-responses; feature student responses; move and duplicate grid structure and content; embed fully-functional grids into other environments such as an LMS or class website; and much, much more on the near term horizon – stay tuned!

We’re so excited to be offering Flipgrid One to teachers across the globe. This is a huge improvement over our old 30-day demo and allows every student to benefit from Flipgrid. Our sincere thanks to Flipgrid teachers and students for their support, enthusiasm, and guidance. We are in this journey together, and we couldn’t be more proud.