H5P is an interactive tool that can be used as a Moodle plug-in. It might seem weird when you first open it in Moodle. However, once you have spent some time looking through all the possibilities that it provides, you will be trapped. This article aims at inspiring teachers to test H5P tool with the purpose of creating memorable and effective learning experience for students.

Author: Olesia Kullberg

Online learning has been present for a while now. Thanks to Covid-19 pandemic, distant learning is familiar to all our students. At the University of Applied Sciences, we have students of different ages, with various learning experiences and numerous learning styles. Yet, one thing that is common for all of them is the fact that epiphany moments guarantee the most pleasant and the most memorable (thus effective) learning experiences. With the limited resources that teachers have for planning and development, creating epiphany moments on top of all the other work might seem a mission impossible. However, a simple, yet functioning solution could be the use of H5P tool.

What can you actually do with H5P?

There are about 50 different content types to choose from. The number is big enough for a beginner to become confused and just fade away. To avoid confusion, let’s simplify – any course consists of at least two main elements, which are content presentation and testing. So, how can 50 content types of H5P be applicable?

Probably one of the easiest content types is Course Presentation, which allows to create a set of slides. In addition to traditional text, video, audio, image features, some interaction can be added to each slide, including different types of questions, interactive videos, drag-and-drop exercises. Such slides can be used during the lesson, as a visual support for the teacher’s presentation. However, if done properly, they can even substitute the classroom lecture. Imagine a student who opens the slides, reads the introduction text, goes to the next slide with the graph on it that is explained by the teacher in the audio format (the audio starts playing immediately when the slide is open, it can be paused, repeated, stopped when needed), next comes the drag and drop exercise testing how well the content of the previous slide is understood, which is followed by an interactive video. Sounds very functioning, doesn’t it?

Column content type helps to present your content in the form of a page that can contain different elements, like text, images, graphs, videos, as well as interactive questions and activities. If one page is not enough, the Interactive book can be used. The result is close to a good-looking interactive e-book, that a student will enjoy studying. Traditionally, all of these activities are added to Moodle separately. H5P tools allow you to bring all of them together and present them in a visually attractive and easily approachable manner. Done this way, even some boring and trivial things look appealing to a student.

As for testing, H5P is probably not the most reliable tool for making tests for evaluation. However, it is a fantastic tool for student’s self-check and practice. Text-based and picture-based drag-and-drop tasks, marking the words in the text, multiple choice questions, short answer questions, quizzes are easy to create and nice to complete. If compared to a Moodle quiz, H5P tasks have much easier syntaxes which is quite similar for all question types, coding skills are not needed! As for a student’s experience, H5P interactive exercises are user-friendly, providing the instant feedback and scores, as well as possibility to complete all the exercises as many times as needed. Using these exercises is a simple way of implementing gamification elements in a course.

Why is it worth using H5P?

H5P tool is very easy to use. If you have learned to use Moodle, you will definitely learn to use H5P. In fact, it is created as a very user-friendly tool accompanied by examples and clear instructions. Learning by doing would be the method that fits the best the process of mastering H5P. What you need is the curiosity to learn something new and the courage to open it and start testing.

Any action needs to be fueled by some reward to be treated successful. In the case of using H5P tools, the reward is an amazing result. It looks good, different, and modern. You will definitely be proud of your creation.

The format that H5P brings in is very attractive to students. It speaks their language, providing different types of content presentation, constant interaction with the content, instant feedback. Furthermore, it is visually much closer to the content students are used to deal with daily.  All the above mentioned factors guarantee the memorable and enjoyable studying moments for students.

To conclude, creating epiphany moments might not be that hard after all. Taking baby steps to start and using your curiosity as the trigger will guarantee an awesome result that both you and your students will enjoy. Easy implementation, endless creativity, memorable learning experiences – these are the additional values of using H5P in teaching.

The examples and instructions on the use of different H5P content types can be found on the H5P website (H5P 2021).

Welcome to start!

References

H5P. 2021. Examples and downloads. [Cited 10 August 2021]. Available at: https://h5p.org/content-types-and-applications

Author

Olesia Kullberg, Senior Lecturer, LAB University of Applied Sciences

Illustration: https://pxhere.com/en/photo/1240181 (CC0)

Published 12.8.2021

Reference to this article

Kullberg, O. 2021. H5P welcomes creativity. LAB Pro. [Cited and date of citation]. Available at: https://www.labopen.fi/en/lab-pro/h5p-welcomes-creativity/