H5P Guides

Summary Tutorial

The Summary content type allows learners to interactively build a summary of a certain topic. Summaries are a perfect way to strengthen your learners’ ability to remember by encouraging them to build interactive summaries as they learn.

In this tutorial you will learn:

  • When to use Summaries
  • How to create a Summary
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Video tutorial

The below video shows how Summary may used and how to make one:

Textual tutorial - example

Here's the Summary we'll create in this tutorial:

When to use summaries

Summaries work best when they are presented to the learner immediately after the learning content.

Examples are:

  • at the end of an article or a chapter of text
  • at the end of a video
  • at the last slide of a presentation

Summaries help the learner remember key information in a text, video or presentation, by actively buliding a summary about the topic at hand. When the learner has completed a summary, a complete list of key statements about the topic is the end result.

Summaries can be created stand-alone or they can be included in Interactive Videos or Presentations. Either way, they are created in the same way. 

Step 1: Summary topic

Let's say you have a text about Blueberries that you want to create a Summary for. We'll use this text from Wiktionary as an example:

Blueberry

An edible round berry, belonging to the cowberry group (Vaccinium sect. Cyanococcus), with flared crowns at the end, that turns blue on ripening.

Step 2: Create Summary

Select the New content option and choose Summary from the list of Content types:

Step 3: Summary editor

The Summary editor should now appear. The top part of the editor looks like this:

Summary editor

In this tutorial, we will focus on creating the actual Summary content, which happens in the top part of the Summary editor. The lower part of the editor, below the label Common fields, deals with translations and default text and is not important in this context.

Step 4: Introduction text

The Introduction text will be visible to the learner throughout the Summary. You can use this field to give the learner a short introduction or some instructions. A default Introduction text which works fine in most cases is suggested. However, you may modify or translate it into another language. 

Introduction

Step 5: Add statements

The Summary content type consists of a sequence of statement groups.

By default, the first statement group consists of two blank text fields each labeled Statement.

statements

You need one correct statement and at least one incorrect statement in each statement group for the Summary to make any sense. 

Note that the top statement in any statement group should always be the correct one. 

In the top Statement field, add the text:

Blueberries are edible, round berries. This will be the correct statement.

In the bottom Statement field, add the text:

Blueberries are non-edible, elongated berries. This is, of course, an incorrect statement.

You can add as many incorrect statements as you want. Add another statement by pressing the Add statement button. In the third Statement field that now has appeared, add the text: 

Blueberries are non-edible, round berries.

You should now have something like this:

list of summaries

We have now finished our first statement group! However, only one statement group makes a very short summary of the topic. You would usually like to add two or more statement groups.

Step 6: Add Statement group

Press the button Add statements. This will add a second group of statements. 

In the top statement field, add the text:

Blueberries turn green on ripening. As the blueberry experts, we are, we know this is a wrong statement. 

In the bottom statement field, add the text:

Blueberries turn blue on ripening. This is the correct statement.

As the top statement should be the correct one, we will have to change the order of the statements. You change the order by pressing the  button in the top right corner of the statement group, drag it to the top of the List of statements, and drop it there. Now the correct statement is at the top of the statement group, as it should be.

You should now have something like this:

You can also change the order of entire statement groups in the same way. Just use the  button in the top left corner of the statement group instead.

Repeat step 6 until you have added enough correct statements to summarize the topic well.

You delete statements or statement groups by using the  button in the top right corner.

Step 7: Finishing up

Press Save when you are done!
You should now have the same result as the example at the top of the page. 
Feel free to leave any comments or suggestions on how to improve this tutorial.