Getting Started

We're excited to have you here because it means you're ready to join a community of thousands of teachers who are engaging their students one video at a time.

Edpuzzle is an easy-to-use platform where you can make any video your lesson. With just one click, you can find video lessons created by other teachers, including formative assessment! Another click and you can adapt that video by embedding your own questions or audio. With the final click, assign it to your students and get beautiful hassle-free analytics: see who watched the video, who didn't understand the lesson, and who did a good job. Students can re-watch the video as many times as they need at their own pace, while you can easily check their progress from your account. 

But enough about us, we want to know more about you and your students! If you're not comfortable with technology, Edpuzzle is as easy as it gets, and our support team is here to help you every step of the way. If you're looking for something powerful, Edpuzzle is flexible enough so you can build amazing video lessons in minutes. We know your students will love it! It's visual, interactive, and it enables them to learn at their own speed.

If you're as excited as we are, feel free to jump in and let us know what you think! Listening to teachers is the best way for us to improve Edpuzzle and create a platform you'll truly love.

– The Edpuzzle Team

With Edpuzzle, you can make any video your lesson in three easy steps:

1. 1. Find a video on YouTube, upload your own or re-use a video lesson created by another teacher.
   2. Then, edit the video to create your lesson. Record your voice to personalize it, and hold your students accountable by embedding questions in the video.
   3. Assign the video to your students and check their progress in real-time while they learn at their own pace. 

That's it – powerfully simple!

Are you just getting started with Edpuzzle? Take our free Level 1 beginner's course!

Students of all ages can use Edpuzzle. In some cases, however, depending on your state or regional laws, you might be required to first obtain parental consent. Find all the information you need to know in the following article*.

What is parental consent?

Privacy laws and/or regulations often require that parents (or legal guardians) consent to or are notified prior to their child's personally identifiable information (PII) being disclosed to a third party.

In the field of edtech, this means that teachers and schools must have proven parental consent before students provide any personal information to third parties, like Edpuzzle.

The fact that teachers cannot invite students to their Edpuzzle classrooms without expressly consenting to Edpuzzle’s Terms of Service and Privacy Policy and verifying their email address thereafter, combined with the impossibility of creating a student account without a unique class code or link, ensures that Edpuzzle does not collect any data it should not be allowed to collect.

When is it necessary to obtain parental consent?

As a general rule, parental consent may apply to different age ranges depending on state or regional law.

In the United States, student privacy is primarily governed by two federal laws: the Federal Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).

• FERPA generally prohibits schools from disclosing personally identifiable information from a student's education records to a third party without written consent from the parent (or the student if over age 18). At the same time, however, FERPA allows for exceptions under which student PII may be shared without consent. One of these exceptions is the "school official exception," under which schools may share student PII with designated school officials with a legitimate educational interest. Third parties may be considered school officials if they are performing a service for which the school would otherwise use employees. Schools define who constitutes a school official with a legitimate educational interest in their annual notification of rights under FERPA.
• COPPA protects children under the age of 13 who use commercial websites, online games, and mobile apps. While schools have an obligation to make sure the services their students use treat the data they collect responsibly, COPPA ultimately places the responsibility on the online service operator. At the same time, COPPA generally does not apply when a school has hired a website operator to collect information from students for educational purposes for use by the school. In those instances, the school (not an individual teacher) can provide consent on behalf of the students when required, as long as the data is used only for educational purposes.

In the European Union and the United Kingdom, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) states that the processing of a child's PII is only lawful when the child is at least 16 years old, although it allows for Member and Signatory States to lower the age provided that it is not below age 13. Currently, the age limits are the following:

• Croatia, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, The Netherlands, Romania and Slovakia: minors under 16.
• France, Czech Republic, Greece and Slovenia: minors under 15.
• Austria, Bulgaria, Cyprus and Spain: minors under 14.
• Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Poland, Portugal, Sweden and the UK: minors under 13.

According to the GDPR, schools are considered data controllers and are responsible for ensuring that student data is processed accordingly. In other words, schools from the EU/EEA must obtain parental consent prior to disclosing PII to any third-party service provider from children under the age limit determined by each Member State’s law.

In Canada, according to the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), consent is valid only if it is reasonable to expect that the student whose personal information is collected would understand the nature, purpose, and consequences of the collection, use, or disclosure to which they are consenting. The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC) has taken the position that, in all but exceptional circumstances, this means anyone over the age of 13. In other words, disclosure of PII of children under age 13 must be previously authorized by the children's parents or legal guardian.

Where do I get it from?

Contacting your IT admin – or anyone at your school responsible for data protection – should be the very first step. If you are not part of a school or in the unlikely event that your school will not take care of parental consent, you should request it for EVERY student that you invite to Edpuzzle.

By agreeing to Edpuzzle’s Terms of Service and Privacy Policy upon registering your teacher account, you acknowledge that you understand your obligations or the obligations of your educational institution to obtain parental consent, where appropriate.

What if I don't need parental consent or am exempt from obtaining it?

If you are not planning to use Edpuzzle with students in the above-mentioned age ranges, parental consent is not required in your case, or any legal exemption applies to the obtainment of parental consent, no further action is required.

Parental consent permission slip templates

For schools in the United States or the European Union/EEA, respectively, Edpuzzle provides a template to help schools obtain parental consent, where applicable (attached to this article: USA template and EU template). 

Nevertheless, it’s up to schools to determine how best to use the template, to complete it with their own contact information and information about the services they enable, and to share it along with Edpuzzle’s Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.

SCHOOLS IN DIFFERENT COUNTRIES AND COMMUNITIES HAVE DIFFERENT REGULATIONS AND APPROACHES, AND EDPUZZLE CANNOT ADVISE YOU ON COMPLIANCE WITH THE LAWS APPLICABLE TO YOUR SCHOOL. YOU SHOULD OBTAIN ANY PARENTAL CONSENT THAT MAY BE REQUIRED BY YOUR SCHOOL IN A MANNER THAT COMPLIES WITH THE LAWS OF YOUR JURISDICTION.

Have questions about parental consent? Don’t hesitate to contact us at support@edpuzzle.com.

*The information provided herein does not, and is not intended to, constitute legal advice. Instead, all information, content, and materials available in this article are for general informational purposes only, and may not constitute the most up-to-date legal or other information. Readers of this article should contact their attorney to obtain advice with respect to any particular legal matter.

Before you get started, we need to validate your email address. This helps us make sure you are who you say you are and keep your personal information safe. 

If you're new to Edpuzzle

When you sign up for Edpuzzle, we'll send you a verification email. To verify your email address:

1. 1. Check your email inbox.
   2. Open the Edpuzzle verification email.
   3. Click on the "Verify your email" button or the link provided.
   4. This will open a window confirming you've been verified.
   5. If you don't receive the email within five minutes, check your spam folder.

If you've already signed up for Edpuzzle

1. 1. You'll see a blue banner at the top of your page prompting you to verify your email.
   2. Click the "Send link" button if you need us to send another verification email.
   3. Check your email inbox (make sure it's the same email you used for your Edpuzzle account email).
   4. Open the Edpuzzle verification email.
   5. Click on the "Verify your email" button or the link provided.
   6. A window will open confirming you've been verified.
   7. If you don't receive the verification email within five minutes, check your spam folder.

What if I don't receive the verification email within five minutes of signing up or clicking on "Send link"? 

1. 1. First, check your spam folder. If you use Outlook, you should check your quarantined folder.
   2. If the email isn't there, go back to your Edpuzzle profile (www.edpuzzle.com/profile).
   3. Change the email address associated with your account to a different one where you can receive emails.
   4. Click on the blue "Send link" button. You should receive an email within five minutes.
   5. If you're still not receiving the email, your school may be filtering out these messages. You'll need to have your school's IT department whitelist our no-reply@edpuzzle.com email address in addition to any other potential filters which could prevent Edpuzzle from working properly. Please send this article on technical setup issues to your IT admin to fix this. 
   6. Once you've completed these steps, click on the "Verify your email" button in the blue banner at the top of the page.
   7. Open the email, click on the "Verify your email" button, and you'll be all set!

Please note that if you update your email address, this will become your new login email for Edpuzzle.

Here's some helpful information about why we ask you to verify your email address:

1. 1. To verify your identity
   2. To help you recover your account in case you lose access to it
   3. To contact customer support regarding changes to your account
   4. To make sure that you're the only one using your email address

First of all, what is accessibility? What do we mean by that? 

The term accessibility is generally used when referring to the design of products, devices, services or environments for people with disabilities. To put it simply, accessibility ensures that everyone, no matter their condition, can use a certain product or device or access a specific place or service.

At Edpuzzle we strongly believe in the right to access information and communication technologies recognized by the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. We work hard to make our service accessible to everyone and, more specifically, to ensure our users can perceive, understand, navigate and interact with our service and contribute to it.

In this sense, Edpuzzle's obligation to accessibility is guided by the leading global accessibility standards, including U.S. Section 508 and WGAC 2.0 (ISO/IEC 40500). Attached to this article you’ll find Edpuzzle's Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT), a document that evaluates how accessible the Edpuzzle service is according to U.S. Section 508 and WGAC 2.0 (ISO/IEC 40500).

Questions or comments on Edpuzzle's VPAT or any other matter relating to the accessibility of our service are more than welcome. Feel free to contact us at support@edpuzzle.com for further information!

If you want to start creating your own amazing video lessons using Edpuzzle, you'll need to create an account. If you haven't already, follow these easy steps:

1. 1. Click the blue "Sign up" button and then click on the "I'm a teacher" button.
   2. You'll have three options: you can use your Google account, Microsoft account, or provide your first and last names, email address, and create a password.
   3. To stay up-to-date, we recommend selecting the option to receive notifications about your account and improvements to Edpuzzle.
   4. Make sure to check your inbox (and spam folder) for the verification email. This will give you full access to all of Edpuzzle's features.

Congrats! You just created your account!

Here’s a quick video tutorial to walk you through the above steps:

If you're just getting started with Edpuzzle, make sure to sign up for our free Level 1 beginner's course.

After creating your account, you can easily connect with your school and department.

When prompted, enter your school name in the search field and select it from the drop-down list.

If you can’t find your school by searching, create it by clicking “Add my school or organization" at the bottom of the pop-up window. From there, type in your school name and enter the city and state. Then click “Add school.”

After choosing your school, select the grade level(s) you teach and your subject(s). 

Now you're ready to find your first video!

Note: You can change your school or your grade level and subject at any time from the School tab within your profile.

With open classes, your students can join a class and complete assignments without an Edpuzzle account. This makes using an open class a great option for younger students, one-off groups of learners, and more!

To create an open class:

1. 1. Click the plus (+) sign next to "My Classes" on the left-hand side of your page.
   2. Click on “Create new class.” 
   3. Add a name for your class and a description (optional), then the class grade level, and subject. 
   4. Select “Open” under “Class type.”
      Note that once you choose your class type, you won't be able to change it.

You can choose to allow your students to create their nicknames or have Edpuzzle automatically create them. To use randomly generated nicknames, check the box that says “Let Edpuzzle generate students’ nicknames.” This means that you’ll see progress and grades on assignments for anyone that completes them, but it will be anonymous.

If you don’t check this box, students will be prompted to enter a nickname upon joining your class. If you want to make sure you can identify who is who, we recommend providing clear instructions to your students for entering their actual names.

You can always change this setting later by clicking on the ellipsis (...) next to the class name at the top of your page and choosing “Edit class” from the drop-down menu. Then scroll down to check or uncheck the same box.

To assign a video lesson to an open class:

1. 1. Visit “My Content.” 
   2. Select the video you want to assign by clicking on the thumbnail or checking the box below the video.
   3. Click “Assign.” 
   4. Select the class(es) you want to complete the video. For reference, open classes display the word “OPEN” to the right of the class name.
   5. Choose your start and due dates, if desired.
   6. Indicate whether or not you want to prevent skipping or turn on closed captions by toggling those features on or off.
   7. Click “Assign.”

To invite students to the class:

1. 1. Click on the "Invite students” button in the upper right-hand corner of the class page. 
   2. You can either share the class link or class code with your students to have them join. If using the link, students just need to follow the link to join. If using the code, students will visit edpuzzle.com, click “Open class” at the top of our homepage, and enter that code where prompted.

Students won’t be able to save their sessions, so if they leave your open class and then join again at a later time, they’ll be treated as new students.

Note: In contrast with classic classes, open classes don’t have a “Class Members” tab. This is because each assignment will generate its own list of students as they join your open class.

Open classes don't include the Gradebook feature either, but you will be able to see the progress for each individual assignment!

Here’s a quick video to walk you through the above steps and to help you learn more about using open classes:

With Edpuzzle's Live Mode feature, you can project your video live in front of the whole class while students answer in real-time on their own devices!

To start a live assignment, select a video from your content and assign it to a class. Then, from the assignment screen, click the “Live Mode" button towards the top of your page.

To enter your live assignment, your students just need to log in to their Edpuzzle accounts and go to your class. This will automatically take them to your live assignment. When your students are ready, click the blue “Start!” button and the video will play on your projector screen. Keep in mind that students will not be able to join after you’ve clicked “Start!” so make sure all students are in before moving forward.

The questions will appear on your students’ screens as well as on the projector screen. You’ll see how many students have answered the question so you can decide when to move on.

When you click “Continue,” students will see any feedback you’ve included for the questions on their screen and the correct answer for multiple-choice questions. On the main screen, you can click “Show responses” to display the results in percentages for the whole class. Names won’t be shared so your students won’t be embarrassed if they get a question wrong. You decide when time’s up and when to move to the next question.

To finish the assignment, click “Exit live” at the bottom of your screen.
(You'll be automatically exited from Live Mode after 3 hours if you forget to click "Exit live.")

If you’re unable to complete the assignment you can also exit Live Mode at any time. When you end a Live session before the video is complete, students can continue on their own later by accessing the assignment as they would normally. All student progress will be saved so they can pick up where you left off.

Note: At the moment, Live Mode isn't compatible with the Android app. If your students are using smartphones or tablets, they should use a web browser rather than the mobile app.

Here’s a quick video to help you learn more about some of the ways you can use Live Mode with your classes: