Google Classroom and EDpuzzle Working Seamlessly Together!

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As my last post for this calendar year (Christmas break is coming up so I'm going to skip the next two weeks),this is going to be a short post, focusing on some new features in EDpuzzle that allow it to work seamlessly with Google Classroom.  For more information on EDpuzzle itself and how to use that tool, see my previous blog post here.  EDpuzzle has created some additions that now allow teachers to post videos directly to Google Classroom, as well as easily create students and add classes.

First, in EDpuzzle, you can now use the Share to Classroom button to add a new EDpuzzle video directly to your Google class for students to access.  They no longer have to go out to EDpuzzle itself to access the videos and you can still see all of the results and analytics that come with the video.

In addition, you can take existing classes of students from Google and import them into EDpuzzle.  This means that if you are a current Google Classroom user and want to try EDpuzzle, you do not have to have your student sign up for two separate classes in two different tools. They can sign up for just your Google Classroom and that's it!  This will also make beginning of the year set-up much easier.  When new students are added during the school year, one click in EDpuzzle lets you update those classes by pulling information from Google.

These new features have really taken EDpuzzle to a whole new level.  It is a great tool for a flipped classroom on its own, but with the new integration to Google Classroom, it makes assigning and managing video assignments much easier and more efficient for the teacher.  If you are an EDpuzzle user or are interested in trying it out, these features will make your life much easier!  Check out the video below for more information on how to use these features.

Have a Merry Christmas and I'll see you all in the New Year!

Edpuzzle - Track Student Progress Using Video Resources

Even if you don't have a flipped classroom, Edpuzzle can be a great resource to use if you want to assign students videos to watch and then track their progress.  It allows teachers to assign videos for students to watch outside of class, instead of having to always take the class time to watch them together, and then be able to see whether students watched the videos and track their progress.  One of the best features about it is the ability to add questions to the video that students have to answer as they watch.  You can add multiple choice or text questions, and then see how students did on the questions.  You can use existing videos from places like Youtube or Kahn Academy, or upload your own videos if you want to record your own lectures. Additionally, you can assign students an edpuzzle project and they can create learning videos themselves!

Now, all that being said, as awesome as this tool is, there are a few things you should know, especially if you are thinking of using it with your FPS high school students.  While we only have one teacher who uses it extensively, he has found that for a handful of students, they run into issues when trying to view his videos on edpuzzle.  Generally it's an issue of the video freezing at some point while it is playing. As a workaround, this teacher saves his videos in his Google Drive, so his students can watch them there if needed.  However, when that happens, he is unable to track their usage and questions. Again, this is only a few students, and this seems to have more to do with our tablets or those students, and not the site or the resource itself.  So this will be something to watch going forward.  As always with technology, a backup plan is a good idea.  And even with the possibility of a few students needing to use the backup plan, this resource is well worth it to track videos you assign to students, even if it's not frequently.  Check out the links below for some really good tutorials and videos on how to use it!

Edpuzzle Demo Video
Edpuzzle Video & Question Analytics Video
Great Youtube Video on Using Edpuzzle