EDpuzzle: a Go-To Platform for the Flipped Class Novice

Flipping a lesson, let alone an entire classroom, is a time-consuming, laborious, chore.  Yes, the payoff is spectacular (differentiated learning, individualized pacing, higher-order thinking, etc.), but many teachers take one look at the legwork it takes to produce, edit and host video content and throw in the towel.

My job as an Instructional Technology Specialist, is to show them the light at the end of the tunnel.  Today, I hosted a training on blended classrooms and flipped learning (presentation below).  In my research on ideal platforms for the novice teacher, I found EDpuzzle.

My initial reaction was an increasing head-nod of approval as I saw that it could:

- Sign in via Google (+1).
- Search and import video from sites like YouTube, Vimeo, TeacherTube, LearnZillion, and Khan Academy.
- Allow teachers to record their own audio track over the existing video.
- Allow teachers to add voice comments inserted within the video.
- Insert quizzes within the video.
- Manage who in your class has watched the video, when and what scores they achieved on the embedded quizzes.
- Host the video in a minimalistic browser window...
- ...or embed the video elsewhere!

In my training, I exposed teachers to ~10 websites they could leverage to create/host video for their sample flipped lessons.  75% of them went with EDpuzzle as their solution.  Comments that I overheard were:

- "I love how it walks you through the process of customizing the video."
- "So all I have to do is just log in with my Google account and I can begin creating?!"
- "Wait...I can keep track of who has watched the videos?  Awesome."
- "Cool...I can rerecord the entire thing or just put in a voice comment."

In well under 30 minutes, one teacher (with no previous screencasting experience nor PD on how to use EDpuzzle) managed to create this video:

Some feature requests that teachers had were:

- the ability to export the video to .mp4 or re-upload the new video (minus quizzes) to their YouTube channel
- the ability to add in Video comments
- the ability to add in text comments that can link out to another web resource

All in all, EDpuzzle is a fantastic platform for novice and experienced Flipped educators alike.  Take a moment and check 'em out!

+Bob Petitto's Flipped Class *reFRESH Training: