The first thing that you might not realize is that Flipgrid is no longer called Flipgrid, it’s been shortened to Flip! This was announced during the Flipgrid’s yearly celebration. With the announcement of the name change, Flip has a fresh look and a new mascot called Smubble. At the celebration, the Flip team focused on how over the last decade, users of Flipgrid pushed the product to become better. To them, it made the most sense to refresh the product now. Flip is available everywhere and anywhere you want to use it to take learning to the next level.

If the product has changed its name, you might be asking what other changes have happened over the summer? I am only going to highlight a few and at the end of the post I’ll post links to the rest of the updates.

Platform Updates

Simpler Web Experience

The first update I want to highlight are the improvements made to the web experience. I am referring to the laptop experience. The look has been cleaned up and the view simplified. They’ve removed the switching that previously needed to happen between the lead and member’s view. I think it’s going to be a whole lot easier to manage. The other thing that I like is the ability to choose between light and dark mode.

Custom Group Links

Now you can customize your group link, which will make it easier for students to access. Your group link can now be used as the join code for the topic or group. These customized names can make your groups more personal and memorable for students.

Edit Captions

Have you ever created a video, watched the playback while reading the Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) captions and thought to yourself, “I didn’t say that!” Those errors can now be fixed. During the editing process, you’ll be able to edit the captions to your video. Don’t worry though, A.I. will catch if your students are trying to type something they shouldn’t be.

Feeds

There have been updates to the home feed. Now, your feed will show you what students have done across all groups. This update also means less clicks to the groups that you want to see and participate in. The other big update to feeds is a new group feed. Group feed will show you everything that is happening in the group in a reel format (an A.I. generated video) without you going into the group and having to click on the topic. Currently, this update is only for the web version the apps will be updated soon.

Post to Group

One of the downsides to Flipgrid in the past was everything had to be an assignment. With this update, you’ll just be able to make a post to share information, a thought, or something awesome that happened in your class.

Camera Updates:

Flip, for many of us, has been the standard for students making video responses in our class and now they have updated the camera experience too!

Camera and Expressions

All the effects and tools that Flip has to offer are easier to find and toggle between within a modern design. This gives the user a seamless experience.

Video Backdrops

Last year, one of the major updates gave users the ability to have a background. The selection was limited, but it did add a level of fun. This year, they have added a ton of new video backgrounds into the library of tools for you to choose from.

ASL Learning Lens (Now in camera!)

Ready to talk about something that is the talk of the town? Inside of Flip they have added a lens that will help you learn the basics of American Sign Language (ASL). Through the camera, Flip will track your hand movements as you are learning each letter of the alphabet. This tool could be extremely helpful in getting started. During their presentation, they also mentioned they are going to be creating a series of Learning Lenses.

Smart Stickers

This update feels very Tik Tok-ish to me. Powered through Bing, these smart stickers will allow users to add within their videos credible, contextual information related to the topic. I think this is one update that students will pick up very quickly.

Flip en Español

From the Flip team: “We’re so grateful for our growing Spanish-language community. That’s why we’re excited to share Flip will soon be available in Spanish on our mobile app and in many more languages next year!”

As I said, there were a lot of announcements and updates. Which one was your favorite? Let us know on our Yammer channel or the comments below. Next week, we will continue with our update theme by talking about Teams.