EDpuzzle: more features and possibilities

I have written about EDpuzzle a couple of times, but probably not enough. I really love it! I love it even more now that I have taken the EDpuzzle Certified Coach online course. Thanks to this course, I am now aware of many additional features and possibilities.

In a previous blog post, I introduced EDpuzzle and some of the basic functions. If you are new to it, click here to read that post. In a nutshell, EDpuzzle allows teachers to personalise videos and add interactive elements to ensure that students are watching actively. Videos can be assigned to students and their responses can be reviewed by teachers. The four main editing options are crop, audio track, audio notes and quizzes.

To ‘level up’, here are a few more features:

Multiple questions/comments at the same point

At any point during the video, multiple comments and questions can be added. If you need more than one, click the ‘+’ icon to add another. Students will see all comments and questions in this section before continuing with the video.

Student Projects

By assigning a Student Project to your class(es), teachers can offer a teacher experience of EDpuzzle to their students. Similar to teachers, students will have access to videos from various sources (including YouTube) and they will also have the same options for editing videos and creating their own video lessons. As the teacher, you can check their videos by clicking on ‘Progress’. From here, you can also leave feedback and even save their videos to your own EDpuzzle content. To assign a Student Project, click My Content > Create > Student Project and then provide the instructions.

Folders

If you use EDpuzzle a lot, you’ll notice your ‘My Content’ section becoming increasingly crowded. Thankfully, EDpuzzle allows us to organise these video lessons into folders. Click My Content > Create > New Folder and add some details about the folder. Then, video lessons can be moved into the folder by selecting them from ‘My Content’ and then clicking ‘Move to Folder’. You might choose to organise video content by class or subject, for example.

EDpuzzle Chrome Extension

By installing this Chrome Extension, an ‘edit on EDpuzzle’ button appears beneath YouTube videos. Clicking this button will take you directly to EDpuzzle where that same video can be personalised. It won’t change the world, but this handy Extension allows you to skip a few steps in the EDpuzzle process. Visit the Chrome Store to install the Extension.

Feedback

From ‘My Content’, you can see a list of video assignments and the ‘Progress’ option for each one. From ‘Progress’, you’ll be able to see the responses from your students on that assignment. Multiple choice questions are automatically marked because the correct answer was already highlighted by the teacher when the lesson was made. However, you will need to assess open questions manually. The number next to ‘Grade’ shows how many open questions need to be marked.

Open questions can be marked as correct/incorrect or, if it’s more appropriate, you can provide a percentage score. Comments can also be left from here. The assessment data can be exported and teachers can copy and paste the information to whatever other assessment file they use.

Premium School Edition

The following features are available with the Premium School Edition of EDpuzzle. For more information and to get a quote, click here.

Gradebook

In addition to seeing students’ progress in each assignment, teachers can now see all of this data in one place. In the Gradebook, students are listed along the top and the video lessons are listed down the side. The data table makes it easy to track student progress over time. You can see this table by clicking My Classes > Gradebook.

School Channel

All teachers at the same setting have access to their School Channel, named ‘My School’ in the channels menu. This is private and can only be accessed by validated teachers at the school. The channel is organised into departments where you’ll find all of your colleagues and all of their content. Lessons and entire folders from colleagues can be copied and edited without affecting their originals. Teachers can save lots of time by collaborating with colleagues and co-creating video lessons in this way.

Conclusion

EDpuzzle is an ideal tool when adopting a Flipped Learning model. Crucially, the interactive elements of EDpuzzle make students are accountable for watching the videos. Teachers can check their progress in the Gradebook and use the data to differentiate tasks appropriately. For more information about Flipped Learning, click here. The Flipped Learning certification course is more intense (and more expensive) than the EDpuzzle course, but it is very worthwhile if you want to gain a deeper understanding of the theory and practices. If you’re interested, more information can be found here.

The EDpuzzle course is made up of short videos (most of them shorter than two minutes). It is completely free and can be completed at your own pace. If you are interested in becoming an EDpuzzle Certified Coach yourself, follow this link. It’s worth it to learn more about this fantastic tool and how it can be used. Let me know if I can help in any way.

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