EdPuzzle: Engaging Students in Effective Learning Through Video

Over the past few years prior to the pandemic, a few of our teachers tried out various tools which allowed them to assign students video content to watch and assess what they understood. After some researching and testing at the start of this current school year we added a paid subscription to one such tool: the pro version of EdPuzzle. We figured teachers would want to do this more often during distance learning. As this year draws to a close the numbers show we were correct. Our teachers have created more than 4,300 EdPuzzle video assignments. Over 100 of our teachers have used it more than ten times this year, averaging thirty or more videos uploaded, and almost ten of those teachers have created more than 100 video assignments with EdPuzzle. Recently I met with five teachers to learn more about how they use it to enhance their instruction:

English

High school English teacher David Adams uses EdPuzzle regularly with both his online eleventh grade English students as well as his in person journalism and English classes. David records a 1-5 minute unit overview video, providing students with a framework of the learning ahead—what they will learn and what the assignments will be. He also creates a video for each week’s lesson. With EdPuzzle, David can prevent students from skipping ahead in a video and he adds a question at the end of each video overview to test whether or not they have watched it. 

David says that these video overviews are nice because students can get to know him and see his face more, especially the online students. Since starting the regular use of video, he has experienced more online students whom he hadn’t met in person coming up to him and talking with him when they are at school for other in-person classes. He likes the fact that he doesn’t have to re-explain things for absent students—instead they just watch the video and stay caught up versus waiting to talk with him at the next class. This saves both David and his students time. Students can also go back and rewatch videos as needed, which greatly helps support the students’ individual learning needs and prevents them from having to wait to meet to get many of their questions answered. Sometimes he will replay a video on the screen during class (such as a grammar lesson) so students who need to can rewatch it, which frees him up to meet with students.

Math

Fifth grade math e-Learning teacher Grace Mevissen “loves EdPuzzle.” She uses it regularly with her online students. It has allowed her to do more flipped learning this year, posting math mini-lessons for students. Grace can see from the EdPuzzle stats that some students watch the video a day prior, and sometimes encourages them to watch the videos multiple times. She can also see when students haven’t watched a video and/or when they only watch part of it. Grace has found it very beneficial for students to be able to watch the video of a lesson if they missed the live instruction session, which like David mentioned, saves time and keeps students caught up.  

Grace likes the library feature in EdPuzzle with premade videos with questions which she can quickly edit as needed rather than having to “reinvent the wheel.” For example, she has found Mr. J’s math videos to be well done and uses this content frequently. Grace’s colleagues Jennifer Hahn and Lisa Lund use EdPuzzle as well to augment their social studies and health curriculum. Sometimes the EdPuzzle quizzes are used as “exit tickets” to formatively assess how well the students understood the lesson. Grace mentioned that in addition to EdPuzzle, she uses a lot of other tools such as Classkick to watch kids’ work in live time and send messages to correct misconceptions. She also has noticed how much more tech savvy students are now, easily able to jump between apps on their iPads.

World Languages

High school Spanish teacher Briana Wilson uses EdPuzzle with both her immersion and regular language classes. It provides a great way for students to hear authentic audio and be able to process at their own speed as they answer questions about what was said. Briana has students listen to a wide variety of topics and asks them questions to keep them engaged, which “automatically increases the active role they have to play as a learner.” EdPuzzle is a great tool to select specific portions of a video, such as one minute of a 15-minute clip. Briana explained that a one minute video with questions will take the students five minutes to watch and re-watch and then answer the questions.

Briana likes being able to import anything from YouTube into EdPuzzle, shorten it to what you really want the students to listen to, and add questions. She and her colleagues use the library to share and edit one another’s video assignments. To accompany a long 450 page novel her Spanish Humanities students are reading, she took clips from specific scenes in the movie so students could compare it with the book. She finds that the students are more motivated to read the next section, as reading a book in a second language can be very tedious. Briana also sets EdPuzzle up so students can see the correct answers, and explains that using it this way is “rewarding for kids to have the validation that they are understanding the content and language”. 

Spanish teacher Fred Moreno-Parra also finds the video library in EdPuzzle to be a time saver. He finds videos where students can see and learn the language in context, such as when traveling or learning about holiday traditions. Fred says EdPuzzle is great because he can find, edit, crop and insert questions into YouTube videos and it removes ads. He says this saves him “tons of time” when using a pre-made two minute video rather than having to spend time making his own, and often the videos available look more professional with graphics and animations than what he feels he could produce. Fred finds that the videos are more engaging for students when learning about important and complex but less exciting topics like verb tenses. He has found the EdPuzzle video format helps his students better learn the material.

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2nd Grade Book Creators Publish Their Learning

Last week I was in second grade teacher Traci Preciado’s class as students were working on writing books on a research topic of their choice. Students eagerly showed me their work and read their books aloud. The topics they selected ranged from animals like cheetahs and sabertooth tigers to Native Americans to British Soldiers. Each student was engaged and excited about producing a book on their topic and motivated to write and find images to illustrate their work using the Book Creator app.

A few weeks prior to this, students had been learning about polar animals, polar lands, and people who live in polar regions. Students had written summaries of each areas and then chose one area to publish as a book. Traci then showed them how to use the Book Creator app and they spent a couple class periods putting in their information. This was practice for their own research project.

The following week students choose an animal, person, or place to research. The wrote questions, researched and read about their topic using Pebble Go, and then wrote about it. They used Book Creator in iPads to type up their writing and insert images. When they finished the class has a publishing fair, inviting in their parents to come in and hear the books being read by students. Traci also emailed each students’ parents a copy of their book electronically as a PDF.

This is a great example of students having voice and choice in their learning as well as creating and communicating their work with an authentic audience, all components of our Minnetonka Teaching & Learning Framework. Traci tied in numerous nonfiction reading and writing skills throughout this project as well. Students were very motivated to learn and use technology to showcase their work.

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Grade 11 Students Create Amazing Graphic Novels with iPads, Book Creator & Notability

View full graphic novel on The Russian Revolution

I’m often amazed at the talent of our students. Their artistic ability is no exception. Our students' creativity is evident in the artwork I see in the hallways, showcases and classrooms throughout our schools. Earlier this year, eleventh grade general English students at Minnetonka High School read Persepolis, a graphic novel autobiography by Marjane Satrapi about growing up during the Islamic revolution in the 1980s. After reading it, the students were given two choices to create their own graphic novel with a collaborative group. The results are awesome!

View full graphic novel on the Weimar Republic

For this project, students worked in collaborative groups and each group member was responsible for two pages individually or the group members chose to work on their pages together. You can see the full assignment description for this task here. Students used a storyboard for planning their projects and each individual completed a self-reflection afterwards. The project was designed by English teachers David Adams, Jordan Cushing, Mary Hedstrom and Judy Thomas as part of their PLC (Professional Learning Community). Students were given two options from which to choose for the topic of their graphic novel. Students could either:

Create a graphic novel based on a revolution that took place outside of the United States before 1970. Students had to pick a revolution, research it, and tell the story of an important event during the revolution in their graphic novel. (Three examples are pictured and linked in this post.)

Or

Create a graphic novel that explores the connections between the challenges faced by a girl living in the United States and a girl living in Iran after 2010. Students researched women’s issues in Iran and America after 2010 and had to tell the story of both girls, comparing and contrasting their experiences in their graphic novel.

View full graphic novel on the French Revolution

One of the teachers, David Adams, told me he was very impressed by the work students did. He explained that students really enjoyed being able to be creative with the project. They used a variety of apps for illustrations. Many used Notability to make the pictures and then drop them into Book Creator. David explained that students felt that Book Creator was very useful for setting up the frames, pages, captions, and speech bubbles, but it didn’t have very many drawing tools. So many of them set up all of the frames in Book Creator first and then went to Notability to illustrate their pictures. This app smash project is a great example of many dimensions on the Minnetonka Framework for Teaching and Learning: collaboration, communication, use of technology, authentic and real world learning, creativity and more. It's also a great example of using iPads and the apps on them to showcase learning in meaningful, deeper ways.

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Minnetonka Top 100+ Ideas for 1:1 Integration in 5th grade, English, Math, Science, Social Studies, and World Language

Last week twelve Minnetonka staff shared their best practices, favorite ideas, and tips for 1:1 integration in their curricular areas at the annual TIES Technology Conference in Minneapolis. Presentations were entitled TonkaX Teacher Talks, 1:1 Science- Unleash the Possibilities, and Engaging Learners Through Reflection & Discussion. Each teacher showcased some of their best ideas for integrating technology in their 1:1 classrooms in 5th grade, social studies, science, English, Spanish, and math. There are so many great ideas, most of which are device agnostic. 

TonkaX Teacher Talks: 25+ Best iPad Ideas
This breakout session will feature five Minnetonka 1:1 iPad teachers for 10 minutes each showcasing their five+ best ideas and tips for iPad integration in their curricular area. Meet a 5th grade elementary teacher, a secondary math teacher, a high school English teacher, a middle school social studies teacher, and a secondary elective teacher. Come see the great things happening in their classrooms with iPads and push your level of technology integration to a higher level to deepen students’ learning!

 
1:1 Science: Unleash the Possibilities
Come and hear about the variety of ways iPads have transformed secondary science classrooms in Minnetonka. You will hear examples from areas of physical science, life science, Earth science, physics, as well as accelerated courses and AP. Leave this session with simple and elaborate ways to integrate iPads in meaningful ways. See how technology integration can transform science education by making the student learning experience more personalized, creation driven, and relevant for today’s learners.

Engaging Learners Through Reflection & Discussion
Come and hear about the variety of ways iPads have transformed secondary science classrooms in Minnetonka. You will hear examples from areas of physical science, life science, Earth science, physics, as well as accelerated courses and AP. Leave this session with simple and elaborate ways to integrate iPads in meaningful ways. See how technology integration can transform science education by making the student learning experience more personalized, creation driven, and relevant for today’s learners.

Two other groups of staff from Minnetonka presented at TIES last week on Implementation of a K-12 Computer Science Program and Crowd-Based Innovation: The Future Is Here. 

In addition to these ideas shared at the TIES conference last week, check out the Top 25 ideas shared at the ETT Conference in San Diego in February by another group of Minnetonka 1:1 teachers. More info about our 1:1 iPad Program can be found here.