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By Jhoangel Fern\u00e1ndez Ram\u00edrez<\/strong><\/p>\n What if when students woke up, they could not wait to go to school to learn and be creative? There are multiple possibilities for making schools more engaging, but one way that I think BPS high schools should be changed is with technology. A great way to add technology to schools is through flipped classrooms. A flipped classroom is the opposite of a traditional classroom, where the lectures are done at home instead, with a video lesson or podcast from the teacher, and the homework is done in school. If you need help you can ask the teacher or work together with other students. Jhoangel: It\u2019s like, I don\u2019t know, it\u2019s like a school evolution.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/div><\/p>\n I spoke with Nick\u00a0Gonzales, Digital Learning Specialist for the Boston Public Schools, about flipped classrooms. Here is an excerpt from the interview:<\/p>\n Jhoangel<\/strong>: My first question is, can flipped classrooms become the change that BPS needs?<\/p>\n Nick<\/strong>: Yes, it can be one of them, it can definitely be one of them. Flipped classrooms are a very good approach to teaching any course or any subject. However, although a flipped classroom is very useful, it doesn\u2019t take the place of a teacher. You still need a teacher in a class. But it\u2019s a great method, and a great approach to teaching content.<\/p>\n Jhoangel<\/strong>: What other programs [can be used in school]?<\/p>\n Nick<\/strong>: There\u2019s a bunch of approaches you can take to using technology in the classroom. For example, there\u2019s coding and programming. People tend to think that it\u2019s just applicable to science and math, and those are two of the things you can use it with. But you can program different songs \u2013 you can use it with music. And you can program an animation that\u2019s got something to do with Romeo and Juliet. Are you familiar with the game Assassin\u2019s Creed? <\/em>Well that\u2019s a really great way to teach history because it shows the different worlds of different eras really well. And you can program that using Scratch and Java.<\/p>\n That\u2019s just one other method. You can also use Google Classroom, you can do collaboration using Google Docs, you can make movies using iMovie and Premier and other applications. So there are a myriad of different ways you can use technology in the classroom. But Google Classroom is one of the main ones right now, and it\u2019s really useful.<\/p>\n Jhoangel<\/strong>: I honestly want to see it in action.<\/p>\n Nick<\/strong>: Well, I use it in my courses. I\u2019m still a teacher\u2014I\u2019m an adjunct professor at Bunker Hill Community College\u2014and I use a flipped classroom approach sometimes in some of my online classes, where [my students will] watch something at home, then come in and discuss it, and it works really well. But I need to stress this as well: it doesn\u2019t take the place of a teacher. You\u2019re always going to need a teacher. You always need someone to push, even for adults that use flipped classes. I teach college kids, and unless they\u2019re really, really motivated a lot of them won\u2019t do it. So you still need that person.<\/p>\n Jhoangel<\/strong>: Can you see Margarita Mu\u00f1iz Academy having flipped classrooms?<\/p>\n Nick<\/strong>: I can, but the administration needs to buy into it, and your principal really needs to buy into it, and she or he needs to understand its implications and understand them thoroughly, because without that\u2014without the administration really understanding and buying in\u2014it\u2019s really hard to push this. It really is, because a lot of administrators don\u2019t understand the thinking behind it, don\u2019t understand the sophistication. A lot of them are stuck in the old: teacher in front of a classroom. It\u2019s not like that anymore. So a lot of teachers know, but administrators, administrators are the hard ones\u2026.a lot of people need someone to sit down face-to-face and help them, and that\u2019s what my team does. So if you want the teachers at Margarita Mu\u00f1iz to learn how to do flipped classrooms, you tell them to contact the Digital Learning Team at the Boston Public Schools.<\/p>\n Jhoangel<\/strong>: That\u2019s how I feel the way school is right now…we\u2019re stuck in old traditions, and we need to move on. This is why I\u2019m doing what I\u2019m doing.<\/p>\n Nick<\/strong>: Yeah. Our schools are modeled on schools from what\u2019s called the Industrial Era, during the Industrial Revolution, where it\u2019s 8 to 5 every day. That\u2019s how companies are set up, right? But you don\u2019t need to have schools inside walls anymore, right? You can do your homework on the bus on your phone, and it\u2019s like you can be in school twenty four hours a day. And the same thing is happening with jobs. But the current model of the school is changing, and it\u2019s younger people starting to change it: people like you. You\u2019re asking questions already. I\u2019ve been asking this question for the last five years. And it\u2019s going to change. It\u2019s just the nature of education.<\/p>\n Jhoangel<\/strong>: It\u2019s like, I don\u2019t know, it\u2019s like a school evolution.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Jhoangel Fern\u00e1ndez Ram\u00edrez What if when students woke up, they could not wait to go to school to learn and be creative? There are multiple possibilities for making schools more engaging, but one way that I think BPS high schools should be changed is with technology. A great way to add technology to schools […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","has-post-thumbnail"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":162,"url":"https:\/\/826boston.org\/redesign\/estephanie-ramirez\/","url_meta":{"origin":160,"position":0},"title":"Estephanie Ram\u00edrez","author":"Estephanie Ramirez","date":"April 23, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"By Estephanie Ram\u00edrez My last couple of months of 8th grade had everything to do with getting prepared for one test that was going to determine my entire high school career. 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