Chapter 3: Development and Sharing of Branching Scenarios
3.3 Creating Branching Scenarios with H5P
š USask LensĀ
Are you a USask educator, and looking for additional support building your branching scenario? There is help available! Reach out to gmctl@usask.ca to set up a consultation with support staff, who can answer your questions and help you to get underway.
H5P (h5p.org) is an open-source tool that enables educators and instructional designers to create a wide variety of interactive, media-rich learning activities. The Branching Scenario content type in H5P allows for the design of nonlinear, decision-based learning experiences. Itās a great choice for scenarios that require embedded multimedia and a more polished interface.
The following version of the āMorning Commute Branching Scenarioā (also seen in 1.1 What is a Branching Scenario? and in 3.2 Creating Branching Scenarios with Twine) is an example built in H5P.
š Web ResourcesĀ
The following real exemplars (which you may have already explored in section 1.1 What is a Branching Scenario) wereĀ built with H5P:
- Veterinary Medicine – āInteractive Cases in VetMedā (Dr. Jen Loewen, Western College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Saskatchewan) ā this collection of scenarios allows the learner to take on the role of a veterinarian working in an emergency hospital and asks them to respond to symptoms of incoming patients by ordering the appropriate tests and treatments. (You will see screenshot examples from these scenarios throughout this guide!)
- Nursing / Social Work – āSkills Practice: A Home Visitā (Toronto Metropolitan University, Centennial College, and George Brown College) ā an award-winning āserious gameā that uses a video-based scenario to allow the learner to take on the role of a community-health nurse visiting a patient in their home.
- Nursing – āHealth History Interviewā (Toronto Metropolitan University, Centennial College, and George Brown College) ā allows the learner to practice performing a health history interview with a client moving into a retirement home. This resource also includes follow-up feedback and post-scenario reflection questions.
- Nursing – Various Open RN Virtual Simulations (Chippewa Valley Technical College) ā a collection of 12 scenarios for nursing learners to practice demonstrating various skills, which have been released with an open (Creative Commons) licenseĀ
3.3.1 Strengths of H5P Branching Scenarios
Some strengths of building in the H5P platform include:
- User friendly: H5P provides an intuitive, form-based editor, making it accessible for users with no programming knowledge.
- Rich multimedia integration: Incorporate images, audio, and video into decision points to create a highly immersive experience.
- Variety of interactions possible: The branching scenario tool allows you to incorporate other H5P content types, including Course Presentation, Image Hotspot, and Interactive Video, meaning there is a high variety of interaction and feedback opportunities that you can create.
- Easy to update: Making updates, changes, or fixes to your scenario is relatively easy, since it is done in the same place where the activity is hosted. This means (unlike with Twine) you can make quick or āon-the-fly” revisions as needed.
- Supported tool at USask: There is technical and teaching support available for educators at USask interested in working with H5P.
3.3.2 Limitations of H5P Branching ScenariosĀ
Some limitations of building in the H5P platform include:
- Limited branching complexity: H5P works well for moderately complex scenarios, but its interface can become more clunky when building more intricate branching scenarios, making it less flexible than Twine for complex designs.
- Linear editing process: Unlike Twineās very visual and flexible flowchart interface, H5P requires users to manually set up each decision and link between steps. Compared to working in Twine, the building stage in H5P might feel a bit slower.
- Requires an H5P-compatible platform: While H5P can be embedded on websites and Learning Management System (LMS) pages, it cannot be exported as a standalone file like Twineās HTML output. At USask, H5P activities are built and hosted on either our WordPress network or Pressbooks network (meaning you will need to get setup with an account on one of these platforms to get started).
3.3.3 Basics of Building in H5P
The H5P Branching Scenario Tutorial walks through the user interface and key features. If youāre new to H5P, start here.
To show you how to go from a text-based outline (see theĀ Morning Commute Branching Scenario (Word version)) to a working scenario in H5P format, watch the video Building Branching Scenarios in H5P.
š”Tip
- Make sure you have some colleagues or a small group of learners test your scenario thoroughly before you deploy it more widely. They can help you find gaps and errors, or spot assumptions youāve placed within.
3.3.4 Sharing Your H5P Scenario
Once youāve built your branching scenario in H5P, you have a couple of options for sharing it with learners:
- Share the direct URL: It is possible to get a direct link from within an H5P embedded code, which you can then send to learners, or post to a website or discussion board. This way, learners can access from any place on the web (i.e., they donāt need to access it from within a Canva course). For an overview of this, see Getting a Direct URL from an H5P Activity.
- Embed it in a webpage or Canvas page: Use the HTML embed code to embed the activity on a webpage of your choosing, or a Canvas page within one of your courses. For an overview of the latter, see Embedding an H5P Activity in a Canvas Page.
š USask LensĀ
At USask, educators have supported access to H5P and can connect with staff to get technical and teaching assistance. For more help, see: LTE Toolkit: H5P
