University of Ottawa

Changes in learning rarely occur when things are going well. It usually starts with a point or points of tension.   

At the University of Ottawa (uOttawa), that tension was growing clearer each semester. Day after day, Alain St‑Amant (vice‑provost, academic affairs and an active professor), was watching traditional assignments lose their ability to reflect how students learn. The rise of AI, shifting study habits and the limits of static assessments had made one thing obvious: the work students were submitting no longer told the full story of their understanding. Teaching needed room for practice, interaction and experimentation.   

That shift began with H5P. “With H5P, we created engaging and interactive activities that replaced traditional assignments,” Alain says, describing a move away from tasks that measured completion toward experiences that supported learning in progress.  

Turning that vision into something real required more than leadership. It required listening to how students experience learning day to day. That’s where Marissa Tomas, a second‑year biomedical science student, became part of the story.   

Working with course material directly, Marissa began building interactive activities using H5P. She didn’t approach the work as a technologist, but as a learner.   

“I’m not a computer programmer, but as soon as I opened H5P, it was super easy to navigate,” she explains. Drag‑and‑drop exercises, puzzles and sorting activities made it possible to connect concepts to practice without introducing unnecessary friction. The result was learning that felt more active and more intuitive.   

“These assignments made learning more fun and more engaging,” Marissa says. “It didn’t feel like traditional homework.”  

As those activities rolled out, their impact became clear in unexpected ways. Students weren’t only completing the work—they were spending time with it. “Students were finishing the activities before we even covered the material in class,” Alain notes. That behavior signaled something deeper than efficiency. It showed curiosity and momentum. For Alain, this was evidence that interactivity wasn’t a surface feature, but a shift in how students approached learning itself. H5P didn’t add more work. It changed the nature of it. “H5P helped foster engagement,” he says, reflecting on how quickly the experience evolved from experiment to foundation.  

What emerged was a shared understanding across roles. Learning works best when ideas move freely between intent and experience. Faculty insight, student perspective, and thoughtful tools can create something stronger together than any single piece alone. At uOttawa, H5P became part of that connection, helping bridge vision and practice, and making space for learning that feels relevant, active, and worth returning to.