These similar websites are fantastic educational tools!
Zaption allows teachers to use video as an interactive experience. Add images, text, quizzes and discussions to videos to create a “learning tour.” Chose from ready-to-use lessons in their gallery or customize your own interactive videos to meet your students needs. Instantly measure students' understanding and differentiate instruction based on student data. |
EDpuzzle is an educational site that helps teachers better utilize videos in the classroom for learning. Teachers can select a video and customize it by editing, cropping, recording audio, and adding questions to make an engaging presentation or lesson and track students' understanding. |
How Can I Use These In My Classroom?
Formative assessment is effortlessly embedded directly into videos, helping students attend to what they are watching and allowing for purposeful student reflection. As students watch, teachers can check for understanding and ensure active vs. passive watching. This gives teachers the ability to completely tailor a lesson the next day based on the formative assessment results they receive. This is truly utilizing assessment to inform instruction (which is the point of assessment!).
These tools can be used with videos that have made or with videos that are discovered on the site or elsewhere. Oftentimes, teachers may use a video to introduce students to a brand new topic or idea. A well-created video has the ability to quickly help students dive into new learning and formulate new questions and lines of inquiry. Using Zaption or EdPuzzle keeps students focused on a new theme or skill and helps to ensure they are more engaged than when just watching a traditional video clip.
Another use for Zaption or EdPuzzle could be as part of a guided reading center. YouTube has many great read-aloud videos that can be used along with Zaption or EdPuzzle to check for comprehension. (You can also create your own based on class reading!) As the video plays, embed questions to check for understanding and to keep students on track. Students can independently go through the guided reading (or Close reading) activity, while you work with another small group. This is a fantastic way to maximize your time and receive valuable feedback. These tools could also be used in a small group science center (with a video pertaining to an experiment or new learning), a math center, etc.
Zaption or EdPuzzle can also be utilized with documentary-type videos to embed writing prompts. Teachers can record a prompt throughout these videos so that students can pause and write out reflections and thoughts. Good documentaries are often SO packed full of good information that by the end of the video, only the last 10 minutes get well-reflected on. Zaption and EdPuzzle would allow students opportunities to reflect and respond at specific points throughout the video.
Check them out!