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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• Maximizing Hybrid Learning to Increase Engagement & Relationships
• Modifying School in Minnetonka During a Pandemic
• A Pandemic as a Catalyst for Technology Integration in Education
• Preparing for the (Second) Shift to e-Learning Checklist
• Tonka Online High School Starting Year Five with 40+ Courses & 1200+ Students
• 7 Lessons for Success with Schoology
• Six Years with Schoology: Setting Expectations for the Future
• Tip #3 for a Successful 1:1 Implementation: Use Schoology as the Classroom Hub
• Home Sick? Absent Minnetonka Students Caught Up Before They Return
• Setting Seesaw Expectations: Raising the Bar for In-Person and e-Learning
• 14 Popular Tech Tools to Increase Student Learning & Engagement
• Pear Deck in Minnetonka Classrooms- Engaging, Interactive Lessons with Realtime Feedback

Classkick: A Great Tool for Formative Assessment & Feedback

One of the new technology programs we purchased this year during the pandemic to help our students and teachers is Classkick. Classkick allows our teachers to see each of their students' work from their iPads and provide them with feedback. Teachers can upload or create content, lessons and questions which the students work through on their own devices and at their own pace. Teachers can track students's progress in live time and give them instant feedback. Classkick has a free and paid version.

Classkick in Kindergarten

Deephaven Elementary Spanish Immersion Kindergarten teacher Jessica Rojas explained that Classkick allows her students to do activities by themselves. Instead of using small boards to show their thinking, she can  show it on the screen and have students explain their answer and thoughts with the whole class. She can give them digital stickers (such as stars or happy faces) while they are writing. She can see if someone has raised a hand to help or check their work. She uses both the self-paced mode and the teacher directed mode. Her Kindergartners can easily log in by entering the class code. Jessica can review it in live time or if necessary, at any time later--having a digital record of students’ work is more convenient than having it on paper. 

Jessica did say that she uses a balance of digital and paper based activities. She said the students do really like using technology and are motivated to work when they can use their iPads. She also uses PearDeck, Seesaw and other digital tools. Jessica explained that the advantage of Classkick for the lesson I observed is that she can see all the students’ work at once. 

Classkick in PreAlgebra

Sarah Gutierrez, middle school e-Learning math teacher, uses Classkick regularly. Recently when I joined her virtual class students were practicing working on a percent unit. She began class with all 26 students in a Google Meet. The students took notes while watching two videos--one on comparisons and one about percentages/proportions. Then Sarah had students join a Classkick session with eight practice problems. Sarah and the students used the highlighter and digital ink in Classkick to identify the parts of each math problem they needed to work on. Sarah set up each slide to autocorrect so students immediately knew when something was correct/incorrect, as the problem pictured with a red error box. When they had questions, students simply signaled the teacher that they needed help by raising a digital hand, and Sarah would individually look at their problem and work and give them hints and feedback.  

One of the things that struck me as I observed Sarah teaching remotely is how much better this method is than the alternative--if students were using paper for this, Sarah wouldn’t be able to see it in live time of course. Students would have to answer a specific question or submit a picture of their work. Through Classkick, the teacher can interact with the students’ work in real time and give immediate and clear feedback. 

Sarah called Classkick a “Gamechanger. It gives me an opportunity to see what students are doing live. I know what they actually learned and whether they are participating.” As I was able to see, Classkick made it possible for Sarah to basically remove the barrier of having everyone in separate locations. It was almost as if the class was all together sitting in the same room. Sarah said Classkick is great for teacher collaboration and often shares/receives slide decks such as this one with colleagues. 

Classkick in Chemistry

High School Chemistry teacher and Technology Coach Patricia Price uses Classkick regularly with her students, often for formative assessment. Patricia explained that Classkick is better than a paper exit ticket, because she can know how students are doing at the moment versus taking home a stack of paper after school to score and return to students the next day. Additionally, the immediate feedback allows Patricia to determine what content she may need to revisit with the whole class before moving on to other topics, as well as which individual students she may need to connect with for additional support. Patricia uses her iPad to see each student’s screens and can bring up any problem to project to the whole class and discuss. 

One time saving trick Patrica showed me was how she can quickly visually scan a row of student Classkick slides to look for the same answer patterns and quickly spot students who got something wrong--for example, if students had to circle answers on one slide, she quickly scans the row to see if everyone’s circles are in the same spot (see picture). Another example is when glancing at a slide with four matching problems, she scans to see if the same four line pattern is drawn. Talk about a great way to give students immediate feedback! Patricia had pre-labeled some digital sticker responses for students to let them know if they had the correct answers or needed to recheck something, which also accelerated the feedback loop.

The students in Patricia’s class echoed their appreciation of Classkick’s immediate feedback. They, too, value the quick response possible and took comfort in knowing immediately how well they are understanding concepts. They liked the fact they could ask questions based on this feedback, too, rather than waiting until the next day. Although they didn’t state it, this quiet, private method for a shy student to ask a question likely results in more comfort doing so than having to raise their hand and ask in front of everyone.

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• Maximizing Hybrid Learning to Increase Engagement & Relationships
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• A Pandemic as a Catalyst for Technology Integration in Education
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• Minnetonka Teacher Instructional Technology Coaches
• Setting Seesaw Expectations: Raising the Bar for In-Person and e-Learning
• 14 Popular Tech Tools to Increase Student Learning & Engagement
• Pear Deck in Minnetonka Classrooms- Engaging, Interactive Lessons with Realtime Feedback

14 Popular Tech Tools to Increase Student Learning & Engagement

Last Wednesday in place of a regularly scheduled monthly staff meeting, all of our high school teachers spent that time in instructional technology staff development. The teachers each learned about additional technology tools they could use with their students. There were fourteen sessions offered for 45 minutes, each led by a different teacher, and all instructors were all colleagues of the attendees. They called these classes "Tech Mini-Sessions."

Each of the fourteen mini-session descriptions are below. Teachers signed up ahead of time and received CEUs for their time spent learning. All staff were expected to participate as this was in place of a staff meeting. Our three high school instructional technology coaches 

Ben, Darren and Jason each led sessions and organized this event.

Topic	Description
Questioning	Research shows that teachers ask hundreds of questions per day. How can we get the most “bang for our buck” in regards to questioning and discussion? How can we use this strategy as a tool for student engagement? For when we use content to engage students, learning occurs. Join us as we discuss the characteristics of a high quality question and ways in which we can incorporate them into our daily lessons. Various discussion techniques and technology tools will be highlighted such as Answer Garden and Padlet. Please bring an upcoming lesson or unit that you are wanting to focus on.
Quizizz	Looking for another fun way to review? Quizziz is a multi-player game that students can join with a game code and play on their own. What's great about Quizziz is that students get questions on their individual devices instead of on the SmartBoard, and can move through the questions at their own pace. This feature eliminates students signing out due to boredom or because they're "not winning." Quizziz gives teachers valuable data that they can use to review common misconceptions with students right after the game is over. The ease of creating Quizziz games is only a few clicks away if you already have a completed quiz!
Class Kick	Classkick allows students to complete assignments and get help instantly from their teacher and peers. Students self-pace on assignments with their iPads, while teachers can write notes for all students to see or give tailored feedback to individual students. This is great is great way to replace short paper pencil quizzes, as well as, a "first five" or "last five" activity. Bring a lesson or idea to create and share your own ClassKick.
Book Creator	Book Creator is an app that allows the user to create fully interactive ebooks. Students can create comics, photo journals, learning logs, lab reports, etc. With Book Creator, students can incorporate video, audio, images, and text to create a polished, professional product suitable for sharing. Students can also collaborate with one another and create group, or classroom, eBooks. In this session, we will look at the features of Book Creator, as well as options for collaboration and publication. During this session you will be creating a book specific to your content area or interest.
Schoology Quizzes & Question Banks	Are you looking for a way to increase the academic integrity of multiple choice or free response tests, make grading easier, and get better information to inform instruction once the tests are completed? This session will cover: 1. The construction of question banks that can populate randomized Schoology quizzes. 2. Creating a test code to limit access to to assessments. and 3. Using the view by question option in results to inform instruction.
FlipGrid	Video-based responses made easy and fun! Meet your students where they're at. Selfie videos, what more can we say? Flipgrid is a tool that allows students to post responses to your questions, topics, or discussions in short video clips and share them on grids. Students can then watch one another’s clips and respond. You can use their responses in assessments or use them to build community and relationships. The concept may not new, but the elegance and ease of the tool is. Try it out if you want to introduce a new tech tool with a minimal learning curve for both you and your students. You will have the opportunity to create and be ready to run a Flipgrid for your own class.
PearDeck (Google Addon)	Breathe some new life into an older tool. Rethink how PearDeck can fit into your classroom teaching routines. This session will highlight how to use the Google Slides PearDeck addon that allows teachers to add interactive questions to any Google Slide presentation. Allowing you to ask questions during instruction and quickly get insights into how well your students understand the information. Even if you have used, or already been using Pear Deck, join us to learn new features and develop a PearDeck lesson to use with students.
Digital Card Sorts	If you use card sort activities in your classroom and are tired of envelopes full (or partially full) of cards in your desk, try turning them digital. In this session, you'll learn how to create and facilitate card sorts with students using Desmos. Never have an incomplete set again as the activities are stored and managed using your Google login. Bring a set of terms or images for students to sort in an upcoming lesson. We will create and share our card sorts!
Coggle	Students can collaborate on mindmaps together using Coggle. Coggle is a step up from Popplet, as it allows students to work on the same concept map in real time using their Google accounts. Students can personalize their maps and share with their teachers, reflect it on the classroom computer to share with the class, or copy the link to share their Coggle with anyone! This session will introduce you to Coggle and show you how it can be used for an inquiry based project in the natural sciences or a group project in social sciences. Learn how you can make Coggle work for your classroom! Come with a lesson idea for which a mindmap would enhance your content.
Video Discussion Boards	Utilizing student designed videos for discussion boards and formative assessments. In this session you will be introduced to examples and opportunities of how teachers are currently utilizing video to advance student learning to the upper levels of the framework. We will discuss how to enhance Schoology's capabilities with video. By the end of the session teachers will have developed a formative assessment utilizing video.
EdPuzzle (Pro Version)	EdPuzzle is a way to have your students reflect on a video while they are watching it. If you want them to watch a video on their own and ensure that they watch it, you can create an EdPuzzle. It's great for homework, when you have a reserve, or if the content is a topic that works better as individual reflection rather than whole class. You can add audio comments in case there's anything you want them to pay particular attention to. You can also create true/false, multiple choice, and short answer questions. Videos can be clipped and copied.
DoInk	Green Screen provides a way to create green screen videos and images on your iPad. The app lets you combine photos and videos from the camera roll with live images from your iPad’s camera. This app emphasizes ease-of-use and simplicity allowing students to tell a story, explain an idea, and express themselves in truly creative and unique ways. Bring a lesson for which green screen might allow for student creativity in your content.
Google Docs Assignment App in Schoology	If you've ever wanted to check on a student's essay progress or aren't sure which students actually opened up the document you sent them, then you'll want to use the Google Assignment app in Schoology. The Google Assignments app further integrates Google Docs into Schoology. Once you set a Schoology assignment as a Google Assignment, it will make a copy of the assignment for each student, with you as the owner of the document. It allows you to view student progress on a document without asking them to share permissions. The workflow for students is simplified and turning in assignments is as simple as clicking on a "Submit Assignment" button in Schoology.
Quizlet	Many students are already using Quizlet flashcards to study terms and concepts and many subject areas have lots of Quizlet decks already created and ready to go. This session will look at creating and searching for Quizlet decks and using some of the more interactive features like Quizlet Live and the new Quizlet diagrams. Have a lesson idea for which Quizlet could increase student engagement and critical thinking.

This process of ongoing learning, sharing, dialog, reflection and colleague observation is one of the keys to our success and growth of our 1:1 program. You can learn more about our it, iPads, and use of technology for learning in the additional related posts below:

• Technology Speed Dating Professional Development
• More Tips for Successful 1:1 Programs: Ongoing Teacher Sharing, Dialog, Reflection & Colleague Observations
• Teacher Teaching Teachers

• Top 10 Tips for Successful 1:1 Implementations

• Tip #1 for a Successful 1:1 Implementation: Execute the Rollout Carefully and Deliberately

• Tip #2 for a Successful 1:1 Implementation: Differentiate Teacher Training

• Tip #3 for a Successful 1:1 Implementation: Use Schoology as the Classroom Hub

• Tip #4 for a Successful 1:1 Implementation- Make Full Use of the iPad as a Formative Assessment Tool 

• Tip #5 for a Successful 1:1 Implementation- Make Classroom Management an Early and Continuous Focus

• Bigger, Better, Faster: New iPads Coming for Year Six in Minnetonka's 1:1 Program; First Devices Cost $0.38/school day 

• School's (Almost) Out, So Keep Your iPad for the Summer

• A Big Bang for Your Buck: The iPad for $0.44/day: Less than a Chromebook

• Great 1:1 Program Evaluation Questions for Student, Parent, and Teacher Surveys

• Minnetonka's 1:1 iPad Student Training & Setup Checklist & Flipped Student PD 

• Balancing Choice and Control with a Half Million Apps

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

• An Easy Way to Weekly Inform Teachers & Parents of Great Technology Integration

• Immersive Technology Accelerates Learning in Science

• Pear Deck in Minnetonka Classrooms- Engaging, Interactive Lessons with Realtime Feedback

• Quizlet Live: Collaborative Team Quizzes Loved by Teachers & Students

• Immersive Technology Accelerates Learning in World Language Classes

• 40+ Elementary iPad Integration Examples

• Harnessing the Power of Technology in Physical Education

• A New Twist on a Band Playing Test: Solo Trios with GarageBand

• Six Years with Schoology: Setting Expectations for the Future

• Tonka Teacher Talks at ETT San Diego iPad Summit 2015

• Beyond SAMR Ladders & Pools: A Framework for Teaching & Learning

• Free iBook about Minnetonka's 1:1 iPad Apple Distinguished Program: Four+ Years Transforming Learning

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

• Students Explain Everything and Increase Test Scores

• Mt. Rushmore 2- Beyond Four Presidents

• App Smashed Presidential Rock Bands as Alternative Assessments in US History
• Second Grade Virtual Tour Guides through iPad App Smashes with Google Street View & DoInk Green Screens

• One Year Later, Green Screens Are Everywhere in Minnetonka Schools

• Minnetonka Students Create Green Screen Videos with Do Ink

• Math: An Overlooked Subject in Non-Tablet 1:1 Programs 

• Students Learn to Visualize a Process: A Valuable Life Skill for Everyone

• What if Ancient Egyptians Used Google Sketch Up to Build the Pyramids?

Second Grade Virtual Tour Guides through iPad App Smashes with Google Street View & DoInk Green Screens

Recently some second grade students working with Julie Olson and Rachel Studnicka at Groveland Elementary School did a creative app smash for their research projects. The end result was a video of themselves narrating a second moving video in the background. This virtual field trip with the students as a tour guide really brought their learning to life. Students were very excited about this and their projects turned out great, such as the one shown above (used with permission). Besides Egyptian pyramids, other students led tours to places such as Hawaii, Chile or along the Mississippi River.

Prior to recording, the students spent time selecting a topic for inquiry and researching it using Britannica online. After organizing their research, students spent time scripting out their narration with a template (I am broadcasting from… The reason I am here is… Here are the important facts you need to know… The most interesting facts about this topic are…). They also selected their background location and practiced panning and zooming around in it using Google Street View prior to the filming using the iOS 11 screen recording tool. Once they finished this recording, they saved it to the iPad camera roll to import into DoInk as the background for their green screen recording. Students also spent time learning to use DoInk and merging their two videos. DoInk’s green screen app is a great tool used by students in all of our grades--more on that in a couple previous posts here and here. Final projects were saved in Google Drive.

This is yet another great example of the use of technology for learning. It helps students make learning more meaningful, personal, and memorable. Throughout this project, students used multiple skills on the Minnetonka Teaching and Learning Framework besides technology: critical thinking, creativity, communication, and authentic and real world learning. Learn more about the Framework here. Related posts about app smashing, green screens, iPads, using technology for learning, and more can be found linked below:

• One Year Later, Green Screens Are Everywhere in Minnetonka Schools
• Minnetonka Students Create Green Screen Videos with Do Ink
• What if Ancient Egyptians Used Google Sketch Up to Build the Pyramids?
• Grade 11 Students Create Amazing Graphic Novels with iPads, Book Creator & Notability
• Mt. Rushmore 2- Beyond Four Presidents
• App Smashed Presidential Rock Bands as Alternative Assessments in US History
• 40+ Elementary iPad Integration Examples
• Minnetonka Top 100+ Ideas for 1:1 Integration in 5th grade, English, Math, Science, Social Studies, and World Language
• An Easy Way to Weekly Inform Teachers & Parents of Great Technology Integration
• Immersive Technology Accelerates Learning in Science
• Pear Deck in Minnetonka Classrooms- Engaging, Interactive Lessons with Realtime Feedback
• Quizlet Live: Collaborative Team Quizzes Loved by Teachers & Students
• Immersive Technology Accelerates Learning in World Language Classes
• Harnessing the Power of Technology in Physical Education
• A New Twist on a Band Playing Test: Solo Trios with GarageBand
• Tonka Teacher Talks at ETT San Diego iPad Summit 2015
• Beyond SAMR Ladders & Pools: A Framework for Teaching & Learning
• Free iBook about Minnetonka's 1:1 iPad Apple Distinguished Program: Four+ Years Transforming Learning
• Grade 11 Students Create Amazing Graphic Novels with iPads, Book Creator & Notability
• Students Explain Everything and Increase Test Scores
• Math: An Overlooked Subject in Non-Tablet 1:1 Programs
• Students Learn to Visualize a Process: A Valuable Life Skill for Everyone