Review of Educreations

Today, I will be looking at the mobile app, Educreations (link to webpage embedded in name).

What is Educreations?

Educreations is available as an iPad app and can be accessed via the Internet. It is meant for teachers or students to create content of multimodal means via an iPad. You can draw and write as you record yourself speaking, and a video is captured of everything that is happening on the screen. As such, when used on an iPad, you would need a stylus pen to aid you. If you are accessing it via the web, you will need to hook up a drawing tablet or an interactive whiteboard. Hence, for all intents and purposes, I feel that it is best used as an iPad app since one does not need as much equipment.

There is a free and a paid version. As a free version, it only has the most basic of features, like only allowing 50MB of video space (which is not a lot considering that even short videos can take up a lot of space depending on the quality) and uploading of images and background to be used in the video. The paid version provides more options, like 5GB of video space and uploading of documents and presentations. It also gives you the option of exporting the video so it can be saved and stored separately.

Hence, I would say the free version provides a taster, and is meant to entice educators or schools to pay for the app. That is not necessarily a bad thing, since the paid version can help to create flipped classroom content fairly easily. Essentially, using Educreations on an iPad is like using a whiteboard with a recording function as you can draw or write anything on it, and you are only limited by the iPad screen dimensions or by whatever material that you are using as a backdrop to record and teach with.

While it seems like Educreations is similar to VoiceThread (link embedded in name), VoiceThread is web-based and has a more collaborative element to it as others who have access to the videos can comment, which allows for students to discuss what they watched. Educreations is more of a one-way street, in the sense that teachers push information to the students, albeit outside the classroom.

Advantages and Disadvantages

As mentioned, Educreations is very ideal for creating lessons for flipped classrooms, which means students are able to learn at their own pace since they can view the video as often as they want or even pause it to crucial points. Teachers can upload pre-lesson videos so students can learn concepts at home before the lesson and more time can be devoted to higher order thinking skills during class time. Post-lesson videos can also be created to reinforce learning. Moreover, since these videos can be reused over the years (barring any changes in syllabus), it can be time-saver for teachers in the long run.

Having said that, flipped classrooms hinge on the idea of students being self-directed learners who will put in the time and effort outside of classroom time to watch these videos. This can be a huge disadvantage in itself since some students might be reluctant to put in that extra effort, which means they will start the next lesson lagging behind those who had put in the effort to be prepared. 

While it can be difficult to encourage students to become self-directed, motivation can and is a strong factor to push students in the right direction. The teacher just needs to find the right trigger. If the teacher is persistent in driving home the idea that students need to self-directed, it also sets the right tone for them.

Uses

Educreations can be used to create any sort of video relating to anything from grammar rules to the four skills of reading, writing, listening and speaking. For example, a video recapping the structure in a narrative story - i.e. Introduction, Problem, Series of Events, Climax, Resolution and Conclusion - can be created. Or a video introducing the different types of figurative language like similes and metaphors could be uploaded as a pre-activity before the actual lesson of learning how to use them effectively to enhance one's ability to write creatively. The list is endless.

In Singapore's context

Being self-directed learners is what the Ministry of Education wants Singaporean students to become. Hence, Educreations would be a useful tool for teachers and schools to invest in, since it is a handy platform to create flipped classrooms which is a means for students to become more self-directed in their learning.

Conclusion

Educreations is a useful iPad app for teachers and it is easy to use. It will definitely help in flipped classroom content creation.

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.