Here are some tips to consider when using PlayPosit in your course:
- Keep it short. If possible, use video segments that are around six minutes or less.
- Be mindful of question placement. Try not to disrupt the cadence of the video; look for pauses/transitions where you can add interactions. The “preview” feature can greatly help with this as you are building a bulb. After previewing, you can manually adjust placement of questions back in edit mode. If recording your own video, consider adding pauses during recording where you would like to add interactions. Learn more about recording best practices here.
- Allow a few seconds at the beginning and end of a bulb before placing an interaction. Sometimes PlayPosit can glitch if there are interactions too close to the beginning or end of a bulb. We recommend leaving at least 3 seconds at the beginning and end of your bulbs that are free from interactions. Tip: search YouTube for a blank video, trim a few seconds of it, and bookend your bulb with the blank video to provide a buffer!
- Strike a happy medium with the number of interactions. Too many interactions can distract from the video content. Conversely, having one question in a five-minute video can be perplexing. You may find it useful to share a bulb with a colleague to get feedback on the experience before integrating into your course.
- As with all things in course design, think about your learning objective and build accordingly. Ask questions that get students thinking about what you want them to learn from the video. There’s no need to use all interaction types just because they are available. Choose interaction types carefully and in accordance with your goals.
- Provide feedback. Optimize auto-graded learning objects like PlayPosit bulbs by building in as much feedback for students as possible. In PlayPosit, you can add feedback based on answer choice. You can even add “jumps” to different parts of the video based on how a question is answered.
- Be cognizant of the bulb settings. Does it make sense for your students to be able to rewind, fast-forward, skip questions, or retake the bulb? Consider the experience you would like students to have and adjust these settings before sharing in your course.
- Give students credit. Even if it’s a small percentage of the grade, you can motivate students to take/retake a bulb by connecting it with the D2L gradebook. In doing so, you also get the added benefit of analytics to see how the learners are doing with the material. Learn about minimum completion scores here.
- Save time – Use premade bulbs and templates! You can search bulbs made by other PlayPosit users on your “My Bulbs” page under “Premade Bulbs.” If you find one that works, you can copy and modify for your purposes! Learn more about premade bulbs here. Use interaction templates from within the PlayPosit designer, or save your preferred interactions in "My Interactions"! Learn more about templates and my interactions here.
- Save more time - adjust your bulb and interaction defaults at your account level! If you have preferred settings that you use for all your bulbs, you can set those preferences globally in your user account settings. Learn more about user settings here.