A Flipgrid Topic can be created in three ways:

• As a final step in creating your account
• From the main Discussion page in the Topics tab
• From within a Group.

Each of these options will open up the Topic creation window with the following options: 

Basic settings

• Details - Enter what students should see
  • Title
  • Prompt - the instructions or question that students should address in their video
  • Media - Add video/images to your prompt for interest, including the option to create a video. For detailed instructions, see the KB article Recording a Flipgrid video.
• Permissions - Set the Topic to public or private (Private should always be chosen to protect student privacy). If you are creating a Topic from within a Group, the topic will inherit the Group settings, unless Set custom topic permissions is set.
  •  Privacy settings should be set to Student Email to allow them to log in without an account
  • Under Add or edit allowed emails enter “@stolaf.edu” to restrict the Topic to St. Olaf email users with the link to your topic
    • To further restrict the topic, individual email addresses of class participants can be entered (Google class aliases will not work)
  • You can also create a Guest password here for non @stolaf users.
• Essentials - control interaction with the Topic
  • Topic Moderation - With moderation turned on, you can/must approve each video before it is visible to the entire class. Turning on moderation and then leaving videos Hidden also allows you to create a Topic as a private journal between you and each student.
  • Recording Time - Set the maximum length of the video here from 15 seconds to 10 minutes.
  • Comments - You can set each Topic to allow video comments, text comments both, or neither.
  • Closed Captions - Flipgrid will automatically generate captions for your videos, based on the language you choose here (dessverre, no Norwegian available).

Extended settings

Clicking on the Options button will open additional settings for your Topic

• Attachments - add links to documents or sites to your Topic prompt
• Status - control the visibility of your Topic
  • Topic Status - set your Topic to be Active (visible), Hidden (not visible) or Frozen (visible, but can’t be added to)
  • Scheduled Dates - Here you can set your Topic to be Hidden until a certain date, and then potentially Frozen at a later date
• Notifications - Control if and how you and your students are notified of new posts
  • Notification Frequency - Options are: Never, Every new video and comment, Daily, Weekly
  • Topic Followers - Sets whether students can also choose to get updates
• Video Effects - Determine how students can work with videos.
  • Video and Selfe Effects - Determine whether students are allowed to add modifications (filters, stickies, etc.) to their videos, their selfies, both or neither.
  • Likes - Sets the ability for students to Like (and show Likes on ) each video.
  • Download and Share - Turns on or off the ability for students to download a copy of their vide. Note: Students are only given the option to download their video after completing it, and can not do it later from the viewing interface.
  • Video Editing - Allow/prevent students from editing their videos.
  • View Count - Turns on/off the counter showing how many times a video has been viewed.
  • Sticky Notes - Controls the ability to add sticky notes to videos being recorded.
• Feedback - Set the type of response the teacher may give the student
  • Basic Feedback - This setting uses the preset rubric from Flipgrid rating Ideas and Performance.
  • Custom Feedback - This setting allows the teacher to create their own rubric for evaluating student performance. Each criteria has a title, description, minimum and maximum score.
• Defaults - The Save changes to my default settings checkbox at the bottom left of the page allows you to save your current settings as your template for future Topics.

Once you have completed setting all the options, click on Create Topic. You will then be presented with the option to share out your Topic by QR code, Google Classroom, embed and more. (This window can be accessed at any time by clicking on the Share button next to a Topic in a Topics or Group list.)

You will then be taken to the Topic page and presented with the option to Record a response or again to Share a Topic. For detailed information on recording a video, see the knowledge base article Recording a Flipgrid video.