Software Review: PlayPosit

Pronounced: Play-pause-it

​Bottom line: PlayPosit is a useful technology for medical educators, but only for those who routinely use videos. It is not essential.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ - Somewhat useful

What is PlayPosit?

PlayPosit is an online platform that allows you to build interactivity into your videos.  You can choose any online video from Vimeo, YouTube, or another source. The easiest and most common way to add interactivity is to create pauses throughout instructional videos and ask quiz questions. This allows reinforcement of concepts. The instructor can choose whether to allow students to continue the video when questions are answered incorrectly, force students to re-watch a segment of the video, or re-try the question. The questions can be asked in a variety of ways, with many more options than multiple choice. You can add additional references and can link additional videos, which makes this software powerful and versatile. For example, when a student chooses a wrong answer, a link can take the student to another video (or reading material) that explains the question. Alternately, an answer choice can trigger changes to the educational encounter or alter a clinical scenario.  

The strengths of this platform:

1. It works seamlessly with other educational platforms, such as Canvas.
2. If the student signs into Playposit, or goes through a platform like Canvas, the instructor can track student participation, scores, and other analytics.
3. It is ridiculously easy to use and will not take you much time to figure out.  

Cost: Ranges from nothing (for the basic version, or if you have an institutional login) to $100-200 per year.  

Rating: ★ ★ ★ - Somewhat Useful

Playposit is a useful technology for medical educators, but only for those who routinely use videos. It is not essential. The use of such platforms will likely increase as more educators embrace the flipping of medical education.  

I have no financial interest in Playposit.

By Michael Schick, DO, MA
Director of Technology Enabled Active Learning
​UC Davis School of Medicine