If you’re looking for make and take activities that can be customized from ready-to-use templates, Flippity is the place to go! Created by experienced World Language teacher turned Tech Integration Specialist, Steve Fortua, Flippity boasts dozens of activities and tools that will have you re-thinking the potential of Google Sheets. The site contains dozens of activities, games and teacher tools such as:
- Flashcards – Interactive flashcard game reminiscent of Quizlet
- Timeline – Create an interactive timeline, including images
- Crossword Puzzle – Instantly create your own customized crossword
- Random NamePicker – Quickly choose students or group kids into teams
- Quiz Show – Jeopardy-style quiz game even allows you to keep score easily
Astonishingly, the foundation for ALL of the things on the Flippity site are Google Sheets templates. These Sheets templates can easily be customized by you as the teacher, or better yet, distributed via Google Classroom to students as an engaging activity!
Getting Started with Flippity
Each Flippity resource is displayed on the website as a thumbnail with the following resources under each:
- Demo: Allows you to quickly see what the finished product will look like with demo data
- Instructions: Easily explains how you transition from a spreadsheet to the fully finished Flippity resource in a few simple steps
- Template: Click here to make a copy of the Google Spreadsheet. It is the foundation for the resource or game you want to create. Replace the information with your own to create a custom resource or activity.
Once you have decided which template you want to use, click “Template” to make a copy of the spreadsheet file and re-name it. The steps to update the spreadsheet and launch your customized game or resource are as follows:
- Edit the spreadsheet by customizing with your own content. For example, in this quiz show example, you can change the category titles and remove all of the questions and answers to get the spreadsheet ready to assign to kids in Classroom. TIP: Avoid making any changes to the blue fields, these are typically column A and row 1. Consider protecting the range to prevent this from happening accidentally.
- Publish to the Web to convert your boring spreadsheet into an amazing web link. This link will be how you or your students will access the “finished” product you create. From the “File” menu at the top left corner of the Sheets file choose”: File –> Publish to the Web –> Click the “Publish” button in the pop up window that will appear.
- Get the Link by clicking on the “Get Link Here” tab at the bottom of the file. The link will appear once you have published the spreadsheet. This is your custom link that will bring you to your Flippity activity / resource.
Flippity + Google Classroom
There are many options you can choose from for students to work individually or in groups to make their own Flippity game or resource. One of my favorites is the Quiz Show template. If you’ve ever created Jeopardy games using PowerPoint templates, then you know it’s a very time-consuming process, but the end result is something that kids really love. Consider challenging your students to create a game of their own using the Flippity Quiz Show template.
Simply remove the questions and answer fields from the template and replace the category titles with your own topics. Push out the template via Google Classroom, choosing “Students can Edit” so that all kids can edit the same spreadsheet. Assign groups to different categories for a quick and productive in-class activity.
The act of identifying the important pieces of information worthy of inclusion in such a game, coupled with the student’s needing to find the correct answers to the questions they generate, is a review in itself! Since the game is a web link, you can post the link for students to practice and review at home. Flippity.net Quiz Show is an easy ways to help kids be responsible for their own review and have fun while doing it!
