Flipped learning has emerged as a fundamental instructional approach in tertiary education. While a common misconception is that flipped learning is highly dependent on the use of video, educators actually have the choice to flip content using a range of different digital tools, such as interactive slides, timelines of events, infographics, flashcards or even board games. Many applications can be used to build and deploy these learning resources with one of the most popular being H5P – an online tool that is relatively simple to both learn and use. H5P learning activities can now be easily created inside Canvas, can be inserted into UTSOnline, and work across mobile platforms.
Why use H5P?
I have been using H5P to develop content for my teaching since 2018, and many of my colleagues in Science have also adopted the platform. But you may wonder why you should consider using H5P. There are many benefits:
- it is open-source and there is a large community of developers contributing to the improvement of the platform;
- it is straightforward to use and accessible;
- it provides a wide range of learning activities, including course presentation, interactive video, drag the words, memory game, image hotspots and flashcards;
- it can created via the H5P website or directly within your learning management system;
- it works on multiple platforms, including mobile phones, tablets or laptops;
- it has in-built analytics that give you the ability to view your students’ engagement with your learning materials.
The H5P Course Presentation
For flipped learning, one of the most useful interactive H5P content types is the Course Presentation, which enables you to create a staged, scaffolded progression of activities for students. It’s important to consider learning design principles, starting by clearly identifying the learning outcomes of the presentation, and then by foregrounding teacher presence through, for example, a short introductory video. This acts as a lead-in to the slides which make up the body of the presentation. These slides can contain, for example, text, audio files, videos, drag and drop and summarising activities, as well as a range of different questions types. They can be used to outline a concept, provide a worked example, ask some questions and give feedback on student responses (all possible within H5P). You can repeat this loop as many times as you need, but I’d recommended a maximum of four to five iterations and 10 to 15 minutes per presentation; otherwise, your learners might disengage.
After you finalise your presentation, it is essential to produce a table of contents to help students navigate your learning materials. It will also help you to break up your content into user-paced chunks – an important multimedia design principle known as segmenting.
Accessibility
One of the best features of H5P is that it’s designed for accessibility. When you upload images, you can add an ALT text, which describes what the image is about and helps people who read content with screen readers. In other words, you can design accessible materials for all your students, and this is extremely important.
Visual design
Creating compelling digital content for flipped learning using H5P is about not only the technology but also visual design and aesthetics. Content enablers for online learning include colour, layout, typography, and images. These elements are vital as having an interface that is usable and aesthetically appealing will increase the chances of your students engaging with your pre-class learning materials. You can learn more about visual design principles for your H5P modules via the following the H5P Course Presentations:
Get in touch
I have recently moved on from UTS and am now a Senior Education and Learning Designer at the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Ophthalmologists. If you want to find out more about my research into H5P, if you’re more adventurous and innovative and want to try involving students as co-creators of content, or if you have any other questions about using H5P to enhance student learning, check out my website or send me an email.
Find out more
To get started, visit our Overview of H5P in the Resources section or sign up for one of the LX.lab’s upcoming online H5P events in May:
- Create rich dialogue with students using H5P – 13 May
- Building engaging content using H5P – 21 May
- Build student-led adaptive modules using H5P – 26 May
Photo by Patrick McManaman on Unsplash