Review of H5P

Today, I am reviewing H5P (link embedded in name), which is a website that allows for teachers to create interactive content for learners and post it anywhere.

Overview

H5P allows for creation of all sorts of activities which students can interact with instead of being passive learners. Teachers can modify videos to include quizzes that pop up at specific junctures, or a fill-in-the-blank activity that gives immediate feedback to the learners. There are also game templates available. What I have mentioned here is just the tip of the iceberg as to what H5P offers, and while their list is not exhaustive, there is an impressive range to choose from.

In my opinion, I feel that H5P is somewhat similar to Triptico (for my review on Triptico, click here), in the sense that there are many different types of tools and activities which teachers can pick from and modify according to their learners' needs. However, what I feel is a big difference is that H5P allows for teachers to export the activity onto a platform of their choice, while Triptico limits teachers to using their website to run the activity. H5P is a free website and allows anyone who has signed up for an account to have access to all of its features without needing to pay, whereas Triptico users are required to pay in order to be able to do the same.

Having said that, it is not to say that H5P is definitely better than Triptico, since both websites serve different purposes. Activities in H5P are more for use outside classroom time, either as pre- or post-classroom activities or for blended learning purposes, where parts of a course happen online. This is in contrast with Triptico, which is intended for teachers to use in class during a lesson, to enhance learning by injecting a technology-based, fun element to it.

How to create interactive content

H5P provides tutorials (link embedded) on how to use each of the different tools, which is extremely useful.

I have also included a video below that gives an overview of H5P and some of the tools available.

Advantages

Since everything is in HTML code, it can be embedded anywhere, like a Learning Management System (LMS), and even on a blog, like Blogspot or Wordpress! This is a definite advantage since blogs are free to create and can be easily accessed by anyone who has the link.

As you can see below, I have embedded the sample "Fill-in-the-blank" activity that is found on H5P onto my blog. This can be done by clicking on the "< > Embed" button after you have created your activity, copying and pasting the HTML code onto your blog. (Do take note that you need to be in the HTML version when writing your post in order for the code to be embedded correctly.) 

The other advantage is that every step is guided and you do not need to know coding in order to create an activity for your students. Everything is assisted via buttons and drop down menus.

Disadvantages

Not all activities can be embedded in a blog or LMS. Activities that require the H5P plugins, like Interactive Video, will not work on Blogspot. Currently, the H5P plugins have only been developed for Wordpress, Moodle and Drupal. There seems to be a workaround (link embedded), but it requires more technical expertise than what I currently have, hence I cannot give much advice about it.

Creation of certain activities, like Interactive Video, require more time and commitment on the teachers' part. As such, one has consider whether it is worth the investment. There might also be institutional limitations which prevent or deter teachers from putting in the time and effort into creating these online interactive activities.

Uses

Generally, the activities on H5P are more suited for students to complete outside of the classroom, either as a pre- or post-activity. Moreover, since students receive immediate feedback after completing the activity, teachers might not need to go through every single answer the next day during lesson time, and can focus on specific questions that students have. (This presupposes that students have been independent learners and have completed the task before attending the lesson.)

For language-based activities, depending on how the teacher would like to structure the quizzes, there can be many forms, ranging from quizzes on vocabulary to usage of grammar.

As Singapore schools already have their own LMS which provide teachers with the ability to create online interactive lessons, and even track the students' progress via the system, I do not foresee that many Singapore teachers will opt to use H5P over their own LMS.

Conclusion

H5P is very useful and great fun to explore as there are numerous activities one can create for learners to do outside the classroom. The major drawbacks are the compatibility of certain activities with the platforms utilised by the school, and the amount of time that needs to be invested into creating these activities for students.

Review of Triptico Plus

Today, I will be sharing more about the ICT tool, Triptico Plus (link embedded in the name).

What is Triptico Plus?

Triptico Plus is a very comprehensive ICT tool with lots of different functions that can help a teacher not just conduct the lesson in a fun and engaging manner, but also help with classroom management. While I will not be going into every aspect of Triptico Plus as there are too many features to cover, I will be highlighting one component which I think is pedagogically useful.

But first, Triptico Plus in general.

As you can see, Triptico has many different tools - "Quizzes", "Selectors", "Timers" and "Tools". Quizzes contains 10 different templates which allow teachers to create quizzes in a fun and creative way.

Selectors help teachers to make selection of students more interesting while ensuring that it is fair as it is done randomly. While there are other websites that do this function, I find it very convenient to have this tool in the same website as other tools since it is almost like a one-stop shop where I can find almost everything I need.

Timers are not anything new, but, again, it is very convenient to have this tool that I can put up on the screen and have students aware of the amount of time they have left to complete the given task.

Tools contains an assortment of things that the teacher can use for various tasks that can help with classroom management, like sorting students into random groups and even conducting a poll or creating a seating plan.

Focus: What's the Question?

I will be focusing on the quiz template "What's the Question?". This particular game requires students to formulate questions that will match the answer on the screen and is set up to be played in teams.

Uses

The most straightforward way to use this tool is to help students recall concepts, since students have to be able to recognise the concepts that are shown in order to formulate the correct type of questions. Therefore, as English Language teachers, the simplest way is to design a game around asking for concepts like definitions of grammatical components. 

However, that does not only have to be the only to use this tool to teach the English Language. Another way could be to design a game that requires students to use a particular grammatical structure to form the question in order to obtain the answer shown. Or if the teacher wants to tests the students' knowledge of idioms and/or proverbs, the teacher could have the students ask the question using the meaning of the idiom and/or proverb.

The other useful part of this tool is the scorekeeping it does automatically. This little competition it creates helps to spice things up a bit in the classroom.

Pedagogically, it reduces the monotony of teaching while also putting a spin on the lower order thinking skill of recall in Bloom's Taxonomy (Revised). The other interesting part of this game is that, since it is difficult to provide the exact same phrasing of the question which the teacher provides as the "answer", the students can discuss and debate if the phrasing of the question given by the team is appropriate or suitable before the teacher awards the points. This way, the students are given the opportunity to produce language and while also practicing their analytical and reasoning skills. 

In Singapore's context

It will be fairly easy for Singapore teachers to use this in class as the typical class size ranges from 30 to 40 students. Hence, it is possible to use this tool and in particular, the game features on it. That would definitely break the monotony of practising the four skills. 

However, I would suggest using certain of the game functions in smaller groups, possibly after school remediation lessons, where only the weaker students attend. This way, they will get to practise using English in a manner that is more engaging and interactive. Hopefully, this will increase their motivation to continue learning English. Moreover, when students are in a smaller group, there are more chances for everyone to have a say. They might also feel less self-conscious since they are among peers who are of the same level as them.

Conclusion

This particular tool requires a bit of creativity on the teacher's part when designing the game should he/she want to use it for something other than basic recall. However, that should not be a deterrence as the more creative the game, the more fun the students will have.

I hope you enjoy exploring and using Triptico Plus!