Beth Ritter-GuthUnion County CollegeBeth started this session with a lie – she’ll be doing 3 tools; always better to under promise and over deliver!
Tool #1: EdPuzzle
Create quiz questions within a YouTube video that forces students to be engaged with the video. The questions must be answered in order (can’t skip ahead), and the scores can go into a gradebook. One question that I have is whether or not the grades can go into an LMS gradebook, or if the gradebook is specific to EdPuzzle. I’m hoping that will be addressed. <<Edit>> She indicated that the gradebook does not sync with the LMS (they use Canvas). She does, however, have an assignment in Canvas in which the student provides their username for the site. There is a CSV that can be exported from EdPuzzle for the LMS, if desired. To comply with FERPA, she only requires the students to use their first name; however During her demo of the videos, she had an audio intro that was added before the video started. After the video started, there was a question for the students. The question was open-ended, which she said you could go in and mark whether the student got full credit or not.Another question I have about this tool is what happens if/when the YouTube video is removed from the website. Is the video still accessible? <<Edit>> I asked this question and she said that there’s not much you can do. If the video is removed, students can no longer access the video. However, any grades accummulated at that point would still remain in EdPuzzle – just that no new submissions can be accepted. She also demoed how to find videos – it’s a very simple process. And within EdPuzzle, you can trim a video, so you don’t have to have the students watch the entire video if the video is too long. It sounds like there is an embed code which would allow you to put the puzzle directly into the LMS.
Tool #2: ThingLink
ThingLink takes a still picture that contains “hotspots.” So within the image, there can be a number of hotspots (links, static text, etc.). This is a tool that the presenter uses for students to create the content. The example that she gave was providing a picture of a brain (medical classes), and having the students label the different parts of the brain.In her demo of the tool, she started with showing how to do a Google Image Search. The process to do this is to go to images.google.com, enter your keywords, then under the Search Options, select “free to use, even commercially” under Usage Rights. Once the image is in the tool, you can click on the image and begin typing tags. As you add tags, you can include “markers” that appear on the image – which would allow you to indicate to students which order they should go through. Once the image is finished, you can share it by using embed code and putting the image (and hotspots) into the LMS. There was a question a bout She did indicate that there is a paid version which provides you with more options.
Tool #3: FlipGrid
Flipgrid allows students to create video responses to a set of questions presented to them from within Flipgrid. The examples that the presenter showed look like they were recorded on a smartphone. Students also have the ability to respond to other students’ video posts.This tool looks easy enough to use, but because it’s on-the-fly-videos that are being recorded, there’s no transcripts or captions on the videos. The presenter also didn’t mention how this tool can/will integrate within the LMS. Because students can respond to others, it may be that they have to actually go to the website in order to view/respond to posts. Overall, some great tools to look into. I can definitely see integrating ThingLink into some corporate training that I’m working on.
Matthew Evins 