H5P: a strange name with amazing functions!

H5P looks like a strange name to me, for according to its name I cannot dope out what this website is at all! However, after I deeply investigated this website, I was totally shocked at how many things it can do. I bet there is no other website that can satisfy almost all kinds of teaching purposes in one simple website. Now, I cannot wait to tell you more about this useful teaching assistant: H5P.

                      (Click here to go to the official website!)

📑What is H5P?

H5P is short for HTML5 Package. You can view H5P as a platform where you have access to all kinds of interactive HTML5 content which can be edited by the teachers to adapt to their teaching materials and aims. Maybe some examples can help you understand its function. 

The picture above presents some of the content types H5P can provide teachers with. There are actually 52 kinds pf content you can choose from. (You can click here to see the whole list.)

You can use Interactive Vedio to include both the knowledge points and some small quizzes in one video. Students can access them by clicking on a small button emerging in the video at your chosen timing. 

You can also use Sort the Paragraphs to test students' logical thinking abilities and their understanding of the passage structures. 

You can use Dictation to give students some exercises for listening and writing. It needs the students to focus on each specific word in a sentence and reconstruct the sentence based on what they have heard and their basic English knowledge.

I can only name a few in this short blog, for there are tons of ways of using the content in H5P in your teaching materials. Please don't hesitate to explore the website yourself! I am glad to discuss with you about any problems you encounter during you exploration of this website in the comment section.

💎Evaluation of H5P

• It can be used in many disciplines.

For example, H5P can also be used in a math class. Teachers can use it to presents some arithmetic quizzes. It also supports making various charts as teaching materials. Maybe it will be a good tool for IELTS writing practice!

• It has various content types.

All these content types can satisfy different teaching purposes. There are many exercises after the reading passages in English textbooks in China, including true/false questions, choice questions and filling-in-the-blank questions. H5P has all the corresponding content types, which means that teachers can use this single website to put all the questions in the textbooks into an online platform. It will be easier for teachers to monitor the answering process and more interesting for the students to finish the tasks.

• It assist the students in various English abilities, including listening, reading, writing and speaking.

In general, most of the teaching tools can only focus on one part of students' English ability. Some may contribute to vocabulary memorizing whilt some may specialize in speaking practice. However, H5P can achieve them all in one single platform. Teachers can use it to create all kinds of practice mention above.

• It focuses on interactive language teaching.

With H5P, teachers can give students immediate feedback based on their answers to the question. Teachers can also input their evaluation criteria. Therefore, after students finish the questions, they can get immediate feedback. This cannot be achieved when students can only finish the questions on their textbooks. Interaction in language teaching can promote students' learning interest and gain improvement in a more effective way.

• H5P content can be linked to other teaching platforms, such as WordPress, Moodle or Drupal site.

This combination of different tools gives teacher more opportunities to adopt this website into their classes.

💕My creation with H5P

This can be a small example for all the Chinese teachers to learn about how to use H5P in our own  context. 

The puzzle in the left picture is made based on the content type Crossword. All the words are from a passage in a textbook with their corresponding definitions as clues for students for reference. In this way, after reading the passage and learning vocabulary, this prossword puuzle can work as a small test to examine whether students actually remember the words and understand their meanings. 

H5P offers enough flexibility for teachers during the process of creating new teaching materials. Teachers can choose how many words they want to include in the crossword puzzle and whether to give extra clues. This kind of flexibility exists in all the content types in H5P. Teachers can make adaptation according to their own needs. 

To sum up, teachers in China always attach great importance to tests. We prefer connecting knowledge with corresponding tests to examine their understanding of the passages or grammar rules. In this way, H5P is a good tool. Additionally, H5P can also notice some areas which are often ignored by teachers such as speaking skills. Then it can work as a reminder for the teachers to pay attention to all the aspects of English learning. Every time teachers select the content types, they will see that speaking is also a distinct category.

💢Limitations

• It is only free for new users for 30 days. 

H5P only provides 30 days free trial for new users. Then users have to buy additional plans.

• It takes so much time for a teacher to create a material. 

Especially when teachers use this website for the first time, it may take extra time to adapt to its usage. 

Here is a video showing you how to upload H5P content to your moodle site. Hope you can enjoy it!