Enhancing Sustainability and Student Engagement with H5P Interactive Digital Workbooks

There were two principal reasons why we undertook this rather substantial project to convert our entire module’s Microsoft Word workbooks into web-based H5P Interactive Book content.

One was the amount of paper that was previously required to print MS Word workbooks for every student (an average of 24,000 pages each week, equating to 0.12 tonnes of paper, or almost three trees). About 288,000 pages were saved in one semester of our advanced technology language module offered to some 800 students.

The second was that half of the year’s teaching was delivered online, due to pandemic restrictions preventing access to campus for staff and students. Rather than merely uploading a somewhat unappealing Word document to the Learning Mall for students to read and fill in, we provided opportunities for students to participate in synchronous and asynchronous module activities through H5P digital workbooks. It also allowed us to track whether students were genuinely engaging with the course, rather than simply brushing through the content of the Word documents.

The practice has since been shared across the School of Languages and further promoted via university-wide training.

The students welcomed the unique innovation and their completion of the H5P activities during the off-campus period was high.

Students could use any device, desktop or mobile, received immediate feedback after completing each activity and were able to retry if their answers were incorrect.

Our entire team of instructors could monitor their attempts, duration of engagement and final submitted scores. It also provided a more aesthetically pleasing and interactive classroom experience for students.

Our takeaway from this project is that interactive online activities can be a valuable addition to traditional textbooks, but not a replacement. While there are concerns about student distractions, reducing paper usage is an important environmental initiative. It is crucial to consider student background and the appropriateness of using technology in certain lessons. Clear instructions from teachers can help manage distractions and ensure students remain focused on the intended learning objectives. Overall, we believe that utilizing interactive online activities can enhance the learning experience in a positive way.

Both staff and students require a certain level of training to create and utilise H5P Interactive Book respectively.

To remedy this, we created a short video to show students how to view the summary page and hand in their work by clicking “Submit Report” after they completed the activities. It’s also helpful to give students general feedback on their performance to encourage them to submit. For students who are clearly falling behind or not engaging, we encouraged peer support and provided more guidance during classes or during teachers’ office hours.

Students sometimes wouldn’t click submit if they didn’t get all or almost all answers correct, as they were afraid that it would impact their final grade for the course.

Some question types, such as filling in a table or those with a broad range of potential responses, can’t easily be converted into H5P. In these cases, consider presenting the questions via the text content type and allowing students time to discuss their answers in groups or online breakout rooms. We still provide the original Word files, so students can write longer answers when necessary.