What is IB Gone in 60 Secs and How Can it be Used in Your Classroom?

Matthew J. Manfredi, School Principal at Danube International School Vienna, explains the mission of IB Gone in 60 Secs and the ways in which teachers can implement it in the classroom to encourage essential skills in students such as creativity, collaboration, communication, and critical thinking

Could you recall a time when you were a student in class and someone leaned over and said “I’m not sure what the teacher is talking about! Can you explain it to me?” So you naturally turn to them and give them your best, condensed explanation. I’m sure you can. This is the premise behind IB Gone in 60 Seconds: one student explaining a concept or topic to another student in under a minute. 

I find it refreshing when an idea comes along that makes sense, helps people, and has the potential to change the world for the better. As a school leader and teacher for over twenty years, I see the need for International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP) students to connect, share, and learn from other IBDP students around the world. 

The IB Gone in 60 Secs’ mission is to connect every IBDP school in the world by fostering a collective, creative, and contribution-led mindset. The vision is to create a vast repository for student generated, teacher moderated video content that spreads through the world one minute at a time as it travels from one student to the next, through one school to the next, and from one country to the next. The value of student agency is emphasized as we simply provide the platform for students to act. 

The idea for creating IB Gone in 60 Secs came as a result of years of classroom teaching: first in New York and now for the last eleven years abroad. As I watch students who are quiet, shy, and passive learners grow into engaged, passionate, and animated individuals who leap at the opportunity to show what they know when the right platform is provided, I am inspired to provide this platform. In January 2021, I launched IB Gone in 60 Secs as a social enterprise with its own website and YouTube channel.

Powered by student generated content and the vast network of IBDP leaders, coordinators, teachers and schools around the world, IB Gone in 60 Secs provides students a safe and moderated platform to showcase important 21st century skills such as creativity, collaboration, communication, and critical thinking. According to the NY Times Op-Ed Columnist Thomas Friedman, these are invaluable skills in navigating the globalized world we live in. Students choose an IBDP subject and their own topic of interest within that subject. They create a video explaining the topic or concept in 60 seconds or less, being as creative as they want to be. They choose a teacher who moderates the video for content accuracy and then they can submit the URL on the website through a Google form.

The videos are given a final check and approval and uploaded onto the channel. The student will receive a thank you email as proof of their submission to the site. These videos will become part of a vast repository of IBDP knowledge from students and schools around the world. The repository is easily searchable and provides students with the opportunity to deepen their own knowledge while simultaneously helping others revise. These videos also showcase the extensive and unique IBDP curriculum for the world to see and hear.

IBDP students are required, as part of their program, to participate in and create opportunities for C.A.S. The student created videos can be used as Creativity and Service to help students complete these C.A.S. requirements. Additionally, students can show universities what they know by including links to their IB Gone in 60 Secs videos in their applications. This may help set them apart from other candidates.

As traffic on the YouTube channel grows with content, views, subscribers and likes it can be linked to YouTube’s Ad services to create a revenue stream. This revenue will be directed to improve the site and channel, as well as providing a monthly contribution to support the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF). According to unicef.org, “UNICEF works in over 190 countries and territories to save children’s lives, to defend their rights, and to help them fulfil their potential, from early childhood through adolescence. And we never give up.” 

IB Gone in 60 Secs is a proud supporter of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Specifically, goal 4-Quality Education which is to: Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. IB Gone takes the education from the classroom and shares it with the wider world. Goal 10-Reduced Inequality which is to: Reduce inequality within and among countries. Many international schools that offer an IB education are exclusive. Students sharing what they’ve learned is inclusive. Lastly, goal 17-Partnerships to Achieve the Goals which is to: Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development. IB Gone in 60 secs is not just a proud supporter of the SDGs but an advocate and partner as well.

IBDP school leaders, coordinators, teachers and students please feel free to share the website and YouTube channel with your students and schools. Please encourage your students to be knowledgeable, caring, open-minded, communicators, and risk-takers! Just to name a few of the many IB learner profile attributes.