eduCanon is a free service that is designed to help educators flip their classrooms by adding interactive questions to videos from YouTube, Vimeo, and Teacher Tube. It has a lot of potential to help teachers improve flipped lessons and it's incredibly easy to use. Let's take a closer look!
Now, I know you're probably ready to jump right in and start exploring eduCanon in detail, but let's slow down for a second and check out a quick overview video from the team.
As you can see, eduCanon makes it easy to attach questions to videos and get feedback on how your students are doing. Now that you have some background on the service, let's examine the site in more detail. When you first head over to eduCanon, just hit the big teal (aquamarine?) "sign up" button and you'll be on your way!
Start eduCanoning!
And, while eduCanon is a free service, they also offer a premium version for those interested in spending a little extra cash. For $48* you can purchase a year subscription which will allow you to ask free response questions (instead of just multiple choice), export your results directly to your grade book, and search their library of lessons.
*$48 is their introductory price and will only be available for the next month.
Premium Features
After you sign up for an account (be it free or premium) you'll be taken to the main screen. From here, you can give your lesson a title, set an objective, define the grade and subject, and paste your video's link from YouTube, Vimeo, or Teacher Tube.
The Main eduCanon Screen. Click for a Larger Image.
Whenever you hit a spot in the video where you would like to add a question, simply click "Build Question" and you'll be taken to the creation screen, where you can add a multiple choice question (or free response if you've purchased the premium version). You can also insert images, links, and HTML code into your question.
Adding a Question to your Video
And if you want to edit your question later on, it will be hanging out of the right side of the screen and all you need to do is click on it! Once you're done adding questions, click "Finish Build" and then you'll be able to assign your lessons to specific classes and specific days.
Assigning your Lesson. Click for a Larger Image.
When you're finished assigning your lesson and you're ready to send it out, you've got a lot of options. You can embed the lesson on another site (like Moodle or Blackboard) or send it out via email, Twitter, or Facebook.
Time to Share Your Lesson
Your students will need to create an account with eduCanon, but once they do, you'll be able to track their data and see how each student is performing. And, if you've got the premium version, you can export that data directly to your grade book!
See How Your Students are Doing
And there you have it! The basic features and operation of eduCanon. All in all, it's got a very friendly interface and goes a long way towards making videos more engaging and interactive. Plus, I love the fact that students can't fast forward through the videos, giving the teacher more assurance that the students are actually watching the material.
Suggestions for Improvement
eduCanon is an excellent tool, especially considering that it's free (whereas other similar services, such as Zaption, are not). However, it does leave some room for improvement.
My first, and biggest suggestion, has now been implemented! The eduCanon team has included support for the Common Core Standards, making it incredibly easy for teachers to link their assignments to specific standards and see reports on how students are doing. Definitely an excellent addition to the service.
My second, and more minor suggestion, is to have more question types. Multiple choice and free response are great, but what about polls, surveys, drawn responses, and matching? Sure, you could probably create them on some other site, and then use the HTML tool to embed them, but I think these should really be included in the service, especially in the premium version.
So, while eduCanon is definitely an excellent service that offers a lot of potential for creating free lessons, these two issues are holding me back from giving it a perfect rating. Hopefully they will be addressed in future updates, but for now...
My first, and biggest suggestion, has now been implemented! The eduCanon team has included support for the Common Core Standards, making it incredibly easy for teachers to link their assignments to specific standards and see reports on how students are doing. Definitely an excellent addition to the service.
My second, and more minor suggestion, is to have more question types. Multiple choice and free response are great, but what about polls, surveys, drawn responses, and matching? Sure, you could probably create them on some other site, and then use the HTML tool to embed them, but I think these should really be included in the service, especially in the premium version.
So, while eduCanon is definitely an excellent service that offers a lot of potential for creating free lessons, these two issues are holding me back from giving it a perfect rating. Hopefully they will be addressed in future updates, but for now...
The opinions expressed in this review are my own. I was not compensated for reviewing this application
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