On Friday, I introduced my students to a new technology tool:  EdPuzzle.  It was first introduced to me several weeks ago at a Blended Learning workgroup.  Before EdPuzzle, I was keen on using Videonot.es which syncs to Drive, but since Videonot.es only allows the use of YouTube (which is blocked by my district)…the thought of annotating videos seemed out of my reach.

Not so any more.

EdPuzzle is very easy to use.  It’s easy for students to sign-up and it’s overall use is intuitive.  I loved that my students were able to rewatch video clips before answering either an open-ended or multiple choice question.  The notion of rewatching video clips came in especially handy since the narrator of the clip I chose was British.  It didn’t occur to me that my students would struggle with his accent until I started receiving answers spelled phonetically (e.g. Sway as opposed to Sui…Tong as opposed to Tang).

EdPuzzle automatically grades multiple choice questions and gives students their scores which is actually misleading because the open-ended questions were not graded yet.  But that’s my only gripe about this awesome tool.

Grading the open-ended questions was a breeze because EdPuzzle gives you the option to grade all of the open-ended questions in one fell swoop.  All I had to do was click the red X or the green Check for each student answer.  In fact, I had all of the open-ended questions graded before my students left class.  Easy.

Because I teach history, I use a variety of primary and secondary sources:  print, picture, video, and music.  EdPuzzle is an easy way to have students take a step back when watching a video to really try to understand not only the contents presented, but taking a look at bias as well as using the video to corroborate other resources.

I love the fact that technology tools are constantly evolving to make learning more fun and meaningful for students.  It’s even better when the technology tool is designed for easy use by teachers as well.  EdPuzzle does not disappoint.