Edpuzzle is the program that is #7 my series of posts on The Best Classroom Apps that you can use in your classroom. And from what I’ve seen, Edpuzzle is impressive! Here is a quick tutorial on how to use the program, and it’s uses in your elementary classroom.
I will admit, I’m easily impressed with technology. The amount of cool things we can do now is something that I geek out over. In college, thousands of years ago, we learned that using technology meant showing your students how to find information on microfiche. If you don’t know what microfishe is, Google it. It’s old school.
So What Does Edpuzzle Do?
Imagine you’re watching a movie, and the main character is going to make that critical mistake that will shift the plot of the movie. So logically, you yell at your TV, “Don’t do it!” Or am I the only one that does that? The only problem is that my interaction is pretty one sided, and my kids wonder how many marbles I have left.
Edpuzzle will make videos that you are watching interactive, so you can pause a video at crucial parts for your students, ask questions or drop in audio notes. If you wanted to do an audio voice over during the video, you can do that too! There is a cropping feature available if you choose to show a certain amount of the movie.
Students will watch the video, which will pause automatically for their response, and voila! You have an opportunity to give your students a voice about the topic. So now instead of yelling at the TV, you can interact with the video.
How Complicated Is The Edpuzzle Login Process?
Not complicated at all! You make an Edpuzzle teacher account with your email address or with Google. You can manually add your student’s names, or with one click, you can import them from your Google Classroom! (Click here for a quick Google Classroom tutorial).
Your students do not need an account, just an Edpuzzle class code that you provide after you set up your video.
Edpuzzle Tutorial
Once you set up an account, click “Create”. You can see videos that are trending, or you can find a video using the search bar. Some videos already have questions on them that you can choose, but you will also want to create your own. Once you choose your video, preview it. (Always preview your video, I can tell you some embarrassing stories about videos that I DIDN’T preview.) Then click “edit” to begin the process.
Edpuzzle Tutorial: Cropping Your Edpuzzle
To crop your video into only the parts you want to show, you’ll move the slider bars to the right and left. Moving them will show how much of the video you are removing. Then, click “Add cut”. Now, the video will begin and end where you set your sliders. I would use this for long videos to cut them to about 3-4 minutes. That’s pushing it for an attention span of a first grader.
Edpuzzle Tutorial: Adding Voiceover To Your Edpuzzle
This is a really cool feature if you would like to give your own commentary along the way. I use this for little reminders to pay attention to the next part. “This next part is going to tell you the main idea, so I really want you to listen for it.”
Edpuzzle Tutorial: Adding Questions To Your Edpuzzle
There are three choices that you can add to your video. Multiple choice, open ended questions, or you can add a voice note. I use a voice note if a voiceover doesn’t work well with the video. This way, the video pauses. Otherwise the video doesn’t stop during a voiceover and it may be hard to hear.
The multiple choice questions are automatically graded for you! How cool is that! And your students can practice their critical thinking skills on an open ended question.
To add these features, stop the video where you choose, and click on the kind of questions you want. For multiple choice questions, make sure to enter in the right answer choice with the green checkmark, and the rest with the red plus.
What now?
Once you finished your edpuzzle answers, click save, and then finish. You can now assign this to your classroom. Now you have several options. You can post directly to your Google Classroom or share with other teachers. You can add a due date and turn off the option to skip ahead in the videos. (Highly recommended).
Class Progress
From now on, you can see which students completed the assignments, and which may need to restart. You have the option to reassign the video if they need a do-over. You can also see all their answer choices all in one place, which is nice.
If you need a video walk through, Adam Howard from 2 Minute Teacher Tech walks you through the process here…
Using Edpuzzle In First Grade
Now that you know how to use Edpuzzle, let’s talk about when it would be helpful in first grade. Of course, if we are doing any kind of remote learning, this would be great to post an interactive read aloud, or a Science or Social Studies lesson. In the classroom, perhaps you could assign videos for your small groups or literacy stations. I might even show a math video, pause it to see if they can come up with their own answers, and that can be part of their math remediation. It’s nice that Edpuzzle can save your videos also, because once you make one, you have it forever!
Well, there you have it. I imagine you’re going to play around with it to get used to it. But once you do, you’re going to appreciate how interactive Edpuzzle is.
2 Responses