December 12, 2023, by Laura Nicholson

A H5P Gift to You 

A festive shout-out to Claire Storr for today’s advent contribution! Claire, our Placements Learning Technology Consultant, brings a touch of holiday magic by sharing her expertise in H5P. 🎄✨

Did you know that you can build small eLearning activities in Moodle with H5P? If not, now is the time to find out more. 

H5P allows to you build a range of different activities including quizzes, interactive images, image galleries, crosswords etc. However, we have recently launched a new activity type: branching scenario. 

Branching scenarios

So, what does branching scenario do? Branching scenarios allows you pose dilemmas to students and they can make a series of choices based on their knowledge of the subject and the information you provide them with in the activity itself. It is a bit like those Choose your own adventure books or the Bandersnatch interactive episode of Black Mirror.   

There are so many possibly uses of the branching scenario H5P content type as it allows you to simulate or recreate real world scenarios. For instance, this could be used to diagnose patients, simulate an experiment or to troubleshoot why something is not working as it should. I am sure that you will have some ideas in your head already however it allows to put their theoretical knowledge into practice.  

Within the branching scenario H5P activity, there are a number of different ways in which you can add information. You can simply add some text if you wanted to. Or you could make things a little more interesting with course presentations, interactive videos and image hotspots.  

Helpful tips and support

Before you get started building your own branching scenarios in your modules, I would recommend firstly going to the H5P Demo page within Moodle. It is a self-enrol module where you can find a how to guide on how to build a branching scenario. There are also some tips to consider as well as pitfalls to avoid. You will also find an example of a festive branching scenario.  

Once you have become more acquainted with the branching scenario, don’t just go and build one in Moodle. Instead, plan it and map it out, possibly on a piece of paper. By doing this, you will know what you want the branching scenario to achieve. This would make you consider the choices that students need to make, the mistakes they need to avoid and the lessons that need to be learnt. Additionally, by mapping out the activity, you can think of the best way of presenting information. You might realise that rather than simply adding an image, an image hotspot might be a better way as it would allow you to label the image with extra information which might help inform the student’s decisions. Once you know how every scenario starts and finishes, then it is time to go to Moodle and start building. 

If you feel inspired to have a go at using branching scenarios or perhaps even look at the other H5P content types, enrol onto the H5P Demo page where you will find examples and guidance on all the different H5P activities available on the University of Nottingham Moodle. Good luck! 

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