Edpuzzle as a Useful Classroom Tool

 

    I chose to do a tutorial on an app that I discovered just this past year, and have found very useful even though I only used it to a very limited extent.  Edpuzzle is easy to sign up for and works well with Google Classroom.  The app can be obtained using any platform.  Many of us have Chromebooks for use in the schools, and Edpuzzle is available as a Chrome extension as well.  This app is very useful in that it allows a teacher to take videos from youtube, or create your own videos, and add questions the students must answer to continue with the video.  The questions can be multiple choice or ones that students need to write out answers for before they can continue with the video.  A teacher can monitor the progress of students in the app, and score their answers as well.  Multiple choice questions can be graded by the app itself, allowing the student to see the percentage of questions that were answered correctly.  Edpuzzle has a large collection of video assignments created by other teachers that are also able to be used or modified to suit the needs of a teacher.  It is a very good tool for introductory lessons or for reinforcement of material learned in class.  The videos pertain to multiple subject areas, and any video in any subject area can be turned into an assignment with Edpuzzle.  I will continue with how to get started if this is something you would like to try.

1.  Go to edpuzzle.com and click on sign up in the upper right hand corner of the screen.

2.  On the next screen select I'm a Teacher.

3.  The next screen will allow you to sign up for Edpuzzle in multiple ways.  For most of us, our school emails will be Google, so I find that signing up with Google will be the easiest way to utilize the features.  My instructions will be continued using Google, but you can also sign in using Edpuzzle itself or with Microsoft.  To continue, click on Sign in with Google.

4.  The next step will be to enter your Google Email and basic information.  You must also agree to the terms and conditions, and you can enter an optional password for Edpuzzle if you choose to.

5.  Once you have filled out the information, you will see a screen that lets you search existing edpuzzles that you can use that were created by other teachers, or you can search for a video on youtube and begin editing your own videos using edpuzzle.

6.  Clicking on the menu in the upper left hand corner of the screen will allow you to add classes and student rosters directly from Google Classroom.  If you click on Google Classroom and Add Class, you will be prompted to choose a class and name it.  You would then click on Import Students to add the students from your class in Google Classroom to the class in Edpuzzle.

7.  After you have hit Import Students, your students and their emails will be imported and displayed just as the image above displays them.  You can also click on Gradebook and you will see their names listed.  The percentage scores of any assignments given to them will be stored here.  If you click on Assignments you will see all the assignments you have given the class in Edpuzzle.  You can click on any of them to look at the grades and/or to check how much of the assignment has been completed.  Here is an example of the screen below.

8.  Each class that you set up will need to be imported one at a time.  Just follow the above example for each class.  The image above shows all of your classes that have been imported on the left hand side of the screen.  You can click on any of them at any time to change the class you want to look at.

9.  If you want to assign a video to a class you can choose one that has already been created by another teacher, or you can create one by editing a video yourself.  You can watch a quick video on how to create one yourself by clicking this link.  

10.  When you have found a video or created your own edpuzzle video that you would like to assign to a class, you can look above the video to where it says Assign and click this.  This will bring up all of the classes you have imported.  You can check off the ones you want to assign the video to.  

11.  As you can see on the screen above, you will be able to choose which classes you wish to assign it to.  You can choose to turn on close captions if available, prevent skipping, and choose to post it on Google Classroom for your class to access it there.  It even allows you to post it at the time you want, and also to make it due at a certain time.

This tutorial was meant to show teachers the basics of how to set up an Edpuzzle account using Google and linking it to Google Classroom for teachers that use this platform.  For those looking for further information and guidance in how to use Edpuzzle in other ways, you can check out this Edpuzzle Tutorial

from Youtube which will walk you through different ways to access it and use it with classes beyond just using it with Google Classroom.