H5P Active learning guide

HERDSA workshop material

What is H5P?

H5P is an easy to use interactive content creator, giving you access 39 different interactive content
types including presentations, interactive videos, quizzes, multiple choice questions, timeline,
personality quizzes, flash cards, audio recorder and even mini games. H5P content can be easily
created by anyone and can be shared or reused between different Moodle instances. It is also
mobile friendly which gives students the freedom to complete their learning activities on any mobile
devices. Explore H5P by viewing the examples and downloads on their main
webpage https://h5p.org/.

Why would I use it?

H5P allows educators to provide active learning opportunities for their learners beyond the
classroom. Active learning is defined as “learning by doing and doing and thinking about the things
they are doing” (Bonwell and Eison 1991). This includes activities which promote higher order
thinking and promote self-regulated learning among learners. Some examples of active learning
activities includes chunked content, learning checkpoints, reflections, case studies, sequence
reconstruction and gamification.

H5P is free to use, sharable, re-usable and most importantly, it does not require any technical
expertise in order to be utilised. With 39 different interactive content types, H5P is highly adaptable,
flexible and allows room for variety and creativity. Educators can easily gain proficiency in creating a
simple content type such as “True or False” or “Fill in the Blanks” then progress to advanced types
(Rekhari and Sinnayah 2018). In this guide we will explore an example of a chunked learning
content utilizing H5P.

Chunking learning content in H5P

Chunking is defined as the method of breaking a component into smaller “chunks” of related
information (Neswig 2014). Chunking reduces students' cognitive load, provides meaning and
context to information making it easier to remember. Christopher Pappas identified three common
methods of chunking information, this includes classifying and prioritizing, grouping and organizing
(2013). View this “Image Hotspot” which demonstrates how information chunking is achieved with
H5P.

Use chunking in situations where content can be broken apart into smaller categories or grouped to
improve clarity in meaning. This is especially useful when used on content students identify as
being difficult to understand. H5P tools such as “Accordian”, “Image Hotspot” or “Image
Sequencing” can be peppered throughout the course to actively engage and stimulate students with
an asynchronous teacher presence.

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When embedding these learning interactives into your course content, it is best practice to include
instruction via instructional text. This helps to improve clarity of task and provides a structure for
students to complete these learning tasks. Rekhari and Sinnayah systematically incorporated
instruction to each chunked learning interactive by utilizing the following information below (2018):

 Introduction – Provides a narrative to the activity

 To do – Explicit instructions on what the task is and how to complete it
 Hints – Links task to textbook or lecture material within the course for assistance
 Time taken to complete – Lets the learner know how much time they will need to set aside to
complete this task

The second element to creating a chunked H5P is the use of feedback. The use of feedback is a
learner’s major mechanism to check their progress within a learning task (Lucas 2012). Most H5P
learning interactive also allow learners to check their understanding on the particular concept. The
“check”, “retry” or “show solution” options provides immediate feedback to reinforce and guide
learning (Rekhari and Sinnayah 2018). View the image below to see an example of a chunked
learning interactive with instructional text.

Sourced from: Rekhari, S. & Sinnayah, P. (2018). “H5P and Innovation in Anatomy and Physiology Teaching”. Refereed Paper Presented at the
2018 HERDSA International Conference at the University of South Australia, July 2-5, 2018. HERDSA: (Re) valuing Higher Education.

Now that we’ve gone through what, why and how to utilize H5P learning interactives. Please find
instructional guides below which will guide you through creating your desired H5P learning
interactives.

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Step 1: Selecting an access to H5P

There are two ways to start creating H5P learning interactives. With the H5P site or H5P learning
management system plugin. It is recommended that you use the H5P plugin if it is available to
you, as the learning interactives can be connected to the System’s Gradebook, has no maximum
size limit and does not require you to create a new account.

Utilizing the H5P site to create learning interactives allow you to keep all of your H5P content within
one account and prevent any accidental deletions from occurring. However, it also means that you
will be the only person that will be able to edit the learning interactive unless you create a central
account to be shared with the rest of the team. Another drawback includes the 15mb maximum size
limit per learning interactive. However, it is not recommended that you create a H5P file that is too
large. It should be used as a bite-sized learning opportunity rather than an entire lesson
replacement.

This guide will walk you through the process of creating a H5P learning interactive by utilising the
H5P site.

Accessing the H5P site

1. Navigate to https://h5p.org/
2. Click 'Create free account' or log in if you already have one. This is located on the top right hand
side of the screen.
3. Once logged in, click 'My account' on the top right hand side of the screen
4. Click 'Create new content'

Step 2: Creating H5P Interactive Content

Explore these content types at your own pace and be as creative as you like. Think about a time
when you asked questions within a classroom to promote constructive class discussion or
incorporated a classroom activity. Can that be made into an interactive content with H5P?

To make choosing which learning interactive to use easier, we have organised the H5P learning
interactives into difficulty levels in creating the different H5P interactive content types below. We
recommend that you start creating a learning interactive with an easy difficulty and slowly work your
way up to moderate and advanced.

EASY MODERATE ADVANCED

 H5P  H5P  H5P
o Accordian - (no guide) o Documentation
Vertically stacked tool - Tutorial guide o Impressive
expandable text and url A series of text, presentation - Tutorial
o Agamotto - (no guide) questions, input fields guide
A sequence of images shown and goals which can be Create 3D
sequentially exported as a text presentations
o Arithmetic quiz - (no guide) document o Personality quiz - (no
Time-based arithmetic quiz o Drag and drop - Tutorial guide)
o Audio - Tutorial guide guide Create personality
An audio recording for your Drag and drop quizzes
students to listen questions using text or
images

Ges Ng and Suneeti Rekhari 2018 HERDSA workshop material Introduction to H5P 3
 o Audio recorder - (no guide) o Essay - (no guide)
A tool for students to record Essay question with
their voices to be exported as immediate feedback
a wav file using keyword triggers
o Chart - Tutorial guide based on found and
Generate interactive charts missing text
o Collage - Tutorial guide o Memory
A collage of multiple images Game - Tutorial guide
o Dialogue cards - Tutorial Create a classic image
guide pairing game
Responsive flip cards with o Questionnaire - (no
images or audio guide)
o Drag the words - Tutorial Create a questionnaire
guide to receive feedback
Drag and drop text question o Timeline - Tutorial
o Fill in the blanks - Tutorial guide
guide Create a timeline of
Fill in the blanks with text events with multimedia
question
o Find multiple  H5P - Multiple interactives
hotspots - Tutorial guide in one
A question on finding specific o Column - (no guide)
locations on an image Create multiple
o Guess the answer – Tutorial interactives vertically
guide o Course
Create an image with a Presentation - Tutorial
question and answer guide
o Image juxtaposition - (no An interactive
guide) presentation with
Compare two images multiple interactives
interactively, either vertically o Interactive
or horizontally Video - Tutorial guide
o Image pairing - (no guide) Videos enriched with
Drag and drop image multiple interactives
matching game o Quiz(Question
o Image sequencing - (no set) - Tutorial guide
guide) Create a sequence of
Place images in the correct various question types
order question o Single choice
o Image slider - (no guide) set - Tutorial guide
Create a slider of images Create questions with
o Mark the words - Tutorial one correct answer
guide
Create a task where user
highlight words
o Multiple choice - Tutorial
guide

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 Create flexible multiple
choice questions
o Speak the words - (no guide)
Answer questions using
voice (Chrome browser only)
o Speak the words question
set - (no guide)
Answer a series of questions
using voice (Chrome browser
only)
o Twitter user feed - Tutorial
guide
Show your twitter feed using
H5P

Step 3: Placing a H5P learning interactive into your learning management system (LMS)

Now that you have created your H5P learning interactive, let’s learn how to embed this into your
LMS. Embedding a H5P into your LMS is straightforward. All you need is a tool with a HTML editor
available. To embed this into your LMS, please follow the steps below.

1. Navigate to your H5P learning interactive

2. Scroll down to the bottom of the object and click Embed

3. A pop-up will appear, right-click and copy the code. You can also alter the size of the learning
interactive here by adjusting the width by height in pixels (px).

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  Note: If you do not see the embed button, edit the learning interactive then scroll down to the
bottom of the page. Ensure that Display buttons and Embed button has been selected and
click Save

4. Navigate to your course and embed the code into any HTML editor.
Tip: This is normally depicted by a ‘< >’ symbol.
If you are a Moodle user, click Toolbar Toggle followed by Edit HTML editor

1. A pop-up window will appear, in any area right-click and paste the Embed Code
2. Click Update
3. Then click Save
4. Your H5P object is now embedded into Moodle.

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References

Bonwell, C.C., and Eison, J.A. (1991). Active Learning: Creating excitement in the classroom. ASHE-ERIC Higher
Education Report No. 1. Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED336049.pdf

Lucas, B., Spencer, E. & Claxton, G. (2012). Learning and teaching methods that work. How to teach vocational
education : a theory of vocational pedagogy. London: City and Guilds Centre for Skill Development in conjunction
with the Centre for Real-World learning at the University of Winchester.

Nesvig, B. (2014, June 12). The Power of Chunking: How to Increase Learning Retention [Blog post]. Retrieved
from https://www.dashe.com/blog/learning/chunking-memory-retention/

Pappas, C. (2013, June 3). 3 Chunking Strategies That Every Instructional Designer Should Know [Blog post]. Retrieved
from https://elearningindustry.com/3-chunking-strategies-that-every-instructional-designer-should-know

Rekhari, S. & Sinnayah, P. (2018). “H5P and Innovation in Anatomy and Physiology Teaching”. Refereed Paper
Presented at the 2018 HERDSA International Conference at the University of South Australia, July 2-5, 2018.
HERDSA: (Re) Valuing Education.

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