Items - H5P Accordion - more than a space saver - Technology Enhanced Learning Team

Published on:

20 April 2023

The effective presentation of material is an important consideration when designing or redesigning any QMplus site. While updating a self directed course in Moodle I have explored a number of inbuilt features of QMplus to make the content as engaging as possible. I have really benefited from using Accordion which is part of the H5P plugin. H5P is a powerful tool which enables staff to create interactive content, it is designed to be straightforward to use and share. It offers staff the ability to make a wide range of interactive resources within QMplus ranging from crosswords to collages of images and interactive books.

I have explored several H5P content types but the one which I have found most useful for displaying information is Accordion. Accordion is a dynamic and interactive tool which presents information in a structured and visually appealing manner as vertically stacked expandable items.

In Accordion:

Content such as text or links can be added into separate sections called panels,
Each panel has its own unique title which enables you to divide information into topics,
The panels stack on top of each other with the titles on display - users click on each title to expand it revealing the content within,
Only one section at a time can be selected which encourages users to focus on a particular part.

Below is a real-life example of an Accordion that I have built.

I took this text from within a section of a QMplus site, and added it to an Accordion

QMplus section before Accordion

In the screen recording below, you can see how the content above appears in the Accordion. I demonstrate opening and closing each of the panels to reveal the content.

I was very pleased with the outcome. It has saved space and the sections are well organised.
The topics format in QMplus similarly includes collapsible sections which can have individual titles. However, sections are designed to contain a range of resources and activities, as well as a description. This is different to the Accordion which provides structure to text and helps prevent QMplus sites being too cluttered.

Benefits

There are specific benefits of using the Accordion:

It improves the appearance of QMplus modules,
It saves space when there is a large amount of text,
Content can be divided into smaller sections enabling learners to navigate through effortlessly.

Further benefits of H5P content types

They can be used across multiple QMplus modules
You can create resources by the content bank or activity picker
The content bank offers a central place to find all your H5P creations
They can be embedded directly within a 'text and media area' or section on QMplus
They can be downloaded and saved on a device for future use or shared with colleagues. Users could consider saving a copy in a shared location, such as a hidden folder in QMplus.
They can be used for a range of different purposes such as, summarising key concepts, providing additional resources, or structuring step-by-step instructions.

Points to consider when working with Accordion in QMplus

If you create an Accordion using the activity picker, it is not automatically stored in the content bank. You would need to download it and re-upload it to the content bank.
In previous versions of QMplus, there seemed to be a limit to the amount of information you could put into a panel. In the example below, I had added too much content to the first two panels, which meant the third was not visible. I resolved the issue by creating additional panels with less content.

H5P Accordion panel not visible

I recommend that you explore all content types in H5P, and especially the Accordion.

Thank you for reading.

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