Are they even watching these videos?! Try Edpuzzle.

Video is a powerful tool in the classroom. Video conveys information easily and quickly and appeals to our students, especially in today's world. Short clips can spark discussion or be a great mini-lesson. It's no wonder that we turn to video as an asynchronous tool as well.

The difference, though, is that when students are watching videos for homework, independent research or as part of a flipped or blended learning model, you lose the opportunity to gauge student understanding, pause the video at key points and get students talking about what they're watching.

Enter Edpuzzle!

I found Edpuzzle a few years ago and I haven't been able to stop talking about it since. Edpuzzle is a simple, but powerful video tool that let's you turn a video into an interactive lesson and easily embed questions, directions, and pauses into a video.

Experience Edpuzzle below.

Seriously, wasn't that awesome? (And believe it or not, it took me about 4 minutes to make this video lesson.)

Edpuzzle let's you upload your own videos, or use resources that are already amazing like Khan Academy, Nat Geo, Ted-Ed, and many other educational video sources. Like many other great edtech tools, they also create a user-generated repository of lessons that you can find, use, and edit. This just makes makes creating interactive videos and digital lessons even easier.

You can send or post a direct link or create a roster and track your student responses giving you embedded formative assessment, accountability and bonus...it integrates with Google Classroom.

Edpuzzle is one of those "unicorn" tools that actually solves a real need teachers have, is simple to use for both teachers and a students, and gives you plenty of data for your effort.

If you've ever assigned a video and asked yourself, "Are students actually watching this video? How can I make sure they are getting everything I planned out of them? How can I make home learning videos work better for my classes?" Try out Edpuzzle.

Are you already an Edpuzzle user? Let me know in the comments how you're using Edpuzzle!