H5P is a programme that I have started to use more and more recently. It’s a free resource that allows us to create simple interactive content like interactive presentations, quizzes and videos.
After spending a bit of time trying out how it works and mocking up a few examples, myself and my colleague Sandra were asked to demo how we have used it at a UCEM “show me” session, which provides a platform for staff to demonstrate projects that they are working on.
Using an h5p presentation (which is one of the tools available to deliver content) we presented a series of examples. Some of which had already been used in learning materials and other have been created as a test to see what the software can do.
These included the following item types:
- Course presentation
- Interactive video
- Image hotspot
- Question set (quizzes)
- Documentation tool
- Essay
- Twitter feed
- Accordion
- Column
- Timeline
One of the best things about H5P is how straightforward it is for creating in that you create learning content straight onto our VLE without having to publish and upload materials. Being a web-based tool, there is no software installation or licences to be purchased and was easily set up to work on Moodle. This allowed us to really have a good look at the programme and try it out on some real learning content and meant more of the team have been able to try it out. The general feeling is that we like it and can see it’s potential.
During the session, we had some interesting discussions about how we could potentially use H5P to improve the way we deliver content. People were particularly keen on the interactive video item, which allows us to add interactions, questions, or hotspots on top of videos. Also well received was the fact that there is a high degree of accessibility built into the resources. H5P has the goal of achieving WCAG 2.0 AA and test each of their content types against those requirements. They are transparent about which content types meet this which helps us to ensure that our learning materials are accessible to our learners as they can be.
It was nice to get positive feedback from the session and we were asked to do a second session, for the student outreach team who had heard about the session and thought we could work together to improve their area of the VLE.
Most importantly for me, was the interest that it generated within the room. Colleagues seemed impressed with what the software had to offer, asking if they could try it out for themselves. We don’t usually get that kind of interest when we talk about the tools we use, which must mean there is something good about it.
Stephen is an Online Education Technologist working as part of the Digital Education team at UCEM.