Flipping the Classroom

The new trend emerging seems to be the Flipped Classroom. No longer are there long boring lessons with little time for hands on activities. Students do the learning on their own. There is a whole dialogue on the subject and below are some websites that will give you a background on the subject. This is by no means a comprehensive list and I don't necessarily agree with everything on each site but it gives an idea of what is trending. As always doing your own research is the best way to make things work for you.
Flip Teaching - Wikipedia
Educause Learning Initiative: 7 Things You Should Know About Flipped Classrooms (pdf)
Flipping the Classroom: Educational Vodcasting
Flipped Learning Network

How I Flipped My Classroom
I teach technology five days a week. I see one set of classes per day so these kids pass through my doorway only once a week. This can make it very hard to teach difficult subjects in a way that doesn't bore them to death. I read about flipping the classroom and liked the idea but I had to adapt it to what I do in an elementary classroom.
Currently my 3rd - 5th graders are learning PowerPoint. I have taught it in the past and found that in the end the kids learned but the level of frustration felt by me was mirrored by the kids. I tried to force them to follow my subject and make slides with little room for personal touches. I was wholly focused on getting the kids from point A to point B. They were bored and felt a bit stifled. It was too much information in too short a time with little practical application. I was frustrated too and I wanted to do better.

When I started reading about flipped classrooms I thought that I could adapt it to my classroom.
This is what I did:
I took one day and for half of the class I talked and demonstrated. Then I turned it over to the kids. We started mucking about in the program. I was just a facilitator. I encouraged them to help one another when a discovery was made. The level of excitement was high and even my slow or reluctant learners got with the program and were wildly successful! They found the ins and outs of the program on their own and their retention was amazing. Those who wanted to race ahead could do so and their new found expertise in Power Point led them to teach those who were lagging. The kids did the teaching and learned along the way. Everyone was asking questions sometimes of me sometimes of each other No one felt stupid and I was never frustrated. The noise level was a constant and pleasing hum punctuated by excited voices when they found something new. The individual creativity of the students floored me! Talk about a way to learn about your students! Kids that were shy and reluctant were bashing out PowerPoints that were filled with what they were passionate about. I had one child who rarely speaks put together a powerful program that spoke of her love of sharks. Who knew?

Another perk of doing a flip is that YOU, THE TEACHER, LEARN!
I am not ashamed to admit that I don't know everything and I encourage the kids to share when they find something.
I had a student teach me something about how to skew a preset rainbow background as we worked through slide layout. I showed them one part and with a bit of experimenting they showed me something. I was excited to learn and they were excited to teach me something!

There will always be times when I have to deliver information and they have to sit and receive it but any time I can figure out a way to do a flip I will do it.

Anyone out there have a flipped classroom? What works for you?