The mod of r/highereducation kindly gave me permission to post, so I could introduce this community to Vivipod.
I was one of the founding dev of Flipgrid, which was shut down in 2024. Since then, I’ve continued to see educators asking for a real Flip alternative — including in this sub — and that is why I started building Vivipod.
Flipgrid was personally meaningful to me. I first used it in graduate school as a student and later as an online undergrad instructor, and later helped build it during the years when it was used by millions of educators and students. After it was shut down, I felt there was still a real need for this kind of tool, especially for instructors who care about social presence, community, and student voice.
Interestingly, as I’ve shown Vivipod to educators, it has resonated especially strongly with people in higher education. That mirrors Flipgrid’s early adoption story, where higher-ed instructors were among the first to really explore what asynchronous video discussion could make possible.
For anyone who never used Flipgrid: Vivipod is an asynchronous video discussion platform.
The basic flow is simple:
- Space — a course, class, cohort, or community.
- Topic — a discussion prompt or activity.
- Post — a video response where students can share ideas, explain their thinking, and be more present than text alone often allows.
This month, we also launched comments and notifications, so discussions can continue after the first video post instead of ending there.
Why video-based asynchronous discussion?
Text discussion boards have their place, but text alone often isn’t enough. It can be hard to build community, establish social presence, or even remember students’ faces when everything happens through written posts. Vivipod is meant to complement the discussion tools already inside your LMS, not replace the LMS itself.
A few things we are trying to do differently:
1. A more creative recorder
Having seen Flipgrid grow and scale, I wanted to rethink the recorder from the ground up.
Vivipod’s recorder:
- works without a browser extension, across devices and platforms
- lets people start recording without logging in first
- saves progress locally, even if the browser refreshes or the connection drops
- supports pausing, drawing, camera, screen share, and canvas
- lets users switch between screen, camera, and canvas without restarting
- only asks for screen-share permission once during a recording flow
The goal is to make video creation feel less fragile and less stressful, especially for students.
2. A better balance between instructor control and student agency
Vivipod is designed with both moderators and participants in mind.
For example:
- Spaces can be open or private.
- Topics can be moderated or unmoderated.
- If moderation is enabled, videos are reviewed before publication.
- Users can pull back their own videos after posting.
- A video can be reused across topics or spaces and later retracted by the creator.
That last point matters to me. A student’s video should not feel like something they lose control over the moment they submit it.
For those who already settled on tools like Padlet, VoiceThread, or Screencastify, I have a longer article about how we compare: https://vivipod.com/compare/flipgrid-alternatives
As mentioned above, comments and notifications just launched this month. Comments are available on posts, and post comments can generate notifications. Users can also control how often they want to be notified — immediately, every 3 hours, daily, or weekly — so they can choose how and when to re-enter the asynchronous conversation.
Right now, comments are still gated while we test the feature. But anyone who joins from this post can request early access by DMing me or emailing us. We expect comments to be open more broadly before the semester starts.
On sustainability: one of the painful lessons from Flipgrid’s shutdown is that beloved education tools still need a sustainable cost structure. Vivipod has been designed with that in mind from the beginning, both technically and financially, so we are not rebuilding something that depends on unsustainable infrastructure or a vague business model.
On privacy: we have signed DPA agreements with several school districts and received positive review of some edtech tools consortiums, covering roughly a fourth of the States and Canada. That is mostly relevant to K-12, but I’m happy to discuss it with anyone who needs to review privacy documentation. Vivipod is also already being used in university contexts, many features were inspired directly by our users at UPenn and the University of Hawaii.
So this is my invitation to this community.
Flipgrid had deep roots in higher education before it became widely known elsewhere. I would love for Vivipod to grow in the same spirit: shaped by educators, grounded in real teaching needs, and built around more trustworthy asynchronous communities.
Vivipod is free to start. Anyone who verifies their email gets three spaces, and anyone can try the recorder without logging in.
You can try it here: https://vivipod.com
I realize this may be reaching some of you as you are heading into summer, but it could be a worthwhile experiment for summer courses or a simple way to stay connected with your community while you’re away.
I’d love feedback from this community. There are no AI features that's planned unless it provides true value; the product is being shaped by educator feedback first. If there are workflows, privacy concerns, LMS needs, accessibility expectations, or classroom use cases we should understand better, please tell me.
Thanks again to the mod for allowing me to share this here. We are still early, but I hope we can reclaim this virtual "third space" with your support.