While on a quest to find a tool that would allow me to embed questions and polls and other interactive content in a YouTube video, I stumbled across something called H5P. In technical terms, H5P is a plug-in for the blogging platform WordPress. In other words, if you have a WordPress blog on ucalgaryblogs.ca, you can use H5P to integrate interactive content (like quizzes, surveys, flash cards, and more) into your blog posts. Here, I introduce to you some pros and cons of using this tool, and offer some examples of how it can be applied in the classroom.

Pros

• Tutorials and examples are available on the H5P website
• With a ucalgaryblogs.ca website, this tool can be used by anyone, including students
• This tool makes content interactive and interesting, which is great for course material and study guides

Cons

• It’s certainly not intuitive to use (but at least the tutorials are at your disposal)
• The responses from the quizzes can’t be recorded or linked to D2L so don’t expect this to replace your current assessment methods

So how can you integrate this technology into your own classroom?

Content Sharing

Create a set of questions focusing on new content, which students are required to complete before coming to class. This exercise requires students to draw upon their pre-existing knowledge to try and answer the questions, encouraging critical thinking. Additionally, students know what to expect when they come to class, which can lead to a conversation rather than a lecture.

Some H5P content that you can use for this activity: Multiple Choice, True /False Question, Fill in the Blanks, Drag the Words.

Studying

Encourage your students to create their own blogs with ucalgaryblogs.ca and use H5P to create study material. With the entire class making their blogs public, students can feed off each other’s knowledge when studying for examinations.

Some H5P content that students can use to make study material: Summary, Guess the Answer, Dialogue Cards.