Reading Time: 2 minutes Now that we’re a few weeks into the semester, let’s revisit a topic that fits into just about every aspect of a course – creating clear content. Whether you’re writing a quick note for your students or a longer piece to use in your course, you’ll need your message to be easily understood. Including just enough information to be clear without over-explaining can be a fine line to walk. Let’s look at some tips for writing content that will keep students focused on the concepts and not slowed down because of word choice or structure. 1. Write with a clear purpose. Know what your goal is…
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How Can My Students Do Presentations in an Online Course?
Reading Time: 2 minutes Having students give presentations is easy enough in a face-to-face class – everyone is present and there’s few technology considerations that have to be made. But once you swap to an online format, a once-simple assignment gets more complex. How can students record presentations that include sharing a screen, video of themselves, and audio? How can students submit their videos so that just the professor can watch them? How can they submit videos so that their peers can view and comment? We’re going to walk through all the options so you can choose what is right for your course, and then we’ll also provide resources for…
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Beginning of the Semester Reminders and Tips
Reading Time: 2 minutes Welcome to the start of a new semester! Today we’re going be chatting about some tips and reminders to make this first week (and the rest of the semester) easier. We know there’s a big gap between semester starts, so it’s easy for some of these things to slip your memory. Combining Canvas sections You may be teaching multiple sections of the same course but want to combine all your students into one section so you have a single place to work on the course. Canvas makes it simple to combine those multiple sections into one. A brief note: you’ll need to combine them before students…
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Kaltura Resources Roundup
Reading Time: 2 minutes We’ve recently published several posts running through everything you need to know to start using Kaltura. Today, we’ll be reviewing that info and pulling it together for easy access! Introduction and Important Terms Kaltura can be accessed through both a website and your Canvas course! Some tasks can only be completed in one place or the other, so make sure you’re familiar with the different locations. Check out “Kaltura: Introduction and Important Terms” for details. Adding Videos to your Library Whether you’re uploading Teams Meeting recordings or other videos you’ve created, you’ll need to know how to bring those files into Kaltura. “Kaltura: Adding…
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Kaltura: Video Analytics and Creating Video Quizzes
Reading Time: 4 minutes We’ve reached the last post of our Kaltura series! Here, we’ll be covering two final aspects of Kaltura – accessing video analytics and creating video quizzes. Finding Video Analytics Viewer analytics can be accessed from My Media both inside and outside of Canvas (through video.cedarville.edu). Select any video within My Media Select the bar graph icon Types of analytics displayed/terminology: Player Impressions – The number of times that the video interface is viewed via the page it is within. Plays – The number of times users clicked play to watch the video. Number of unique viewers – The number of authenticated viewers. All anonymous viewers will…
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Kaltura: Creating Videos, Editing Videos, and Creating Playlists
Reading Time: 3 minutes Now that you know how to add existing videos to Kaltura and share those videos, we’ll turn our attention to some additional tools Kaltura provides. Creating Videos using Express Capture and Kaltura Capture Kaltura Capture is already downloaded on classroom/lab computers as well as tech cars. For personal devices, install Kaltura Capture through my Media according to these instructions: download and install Kaltura Capture. With Kaltura Capture, you can capture a screen through either Canvas or Kaltura Media Space (video.cedarville.edu). You have two options: Express Capture and Kaltura Capture Express Capture: use for brief video announcements. Does not allow for screen sharing/capturing Kaltura Capture:…
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Kaltura: Sharing Videos
Reading Time: 2 minutes Now that you’ve added videos to Kaltura, we’ll talk about how to share them. You can share videos from Kaltura two different ways – generating a permalink (permanent link) or embedding the video directly into Canvas. Generating a Permalink and Sharing A permalink is a dedicated link to a webpage (permanent + link). In this case, Kaltura can give you a direct link to a specific video. You cannot get a permalink from Kaltura inside Canvas. Go to “My Media” in your Media Space (video.cedarville.edu), and click a video. Click the “Share” tab under the video. Make sure “Link to Media Page” is selected, then copy…
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Kaltura: Adding Videos to your Library
Reading Time: 4 minutes Now that you have some Kaltura context from our Intro & Terms post, we’re going to talk about how to add videos to Kaltura. We’ll cover uploading videos to your Kaltura library, transferring videos from OneDrive, linking YouTube videos, and adding from a mobile device. Uploading Videos to your Kaltura Library Log in to Media Space (video.cedarville.edu) or go to My Media in your Canvas course Click “Add New” then “Media Upload” Add a video by dragging and dropping it or clicking “Choose a file to upload.” As the video uploads, you will get a screen to add video details. Add a name and description. Those…
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Kaltura: Introduction and Important Terms
Reading Time: 2 minutes Welcome to the start of our series about Kaltura, Cedarville’s new video management platform and replacement for Ensemble. Across this series, you’ll learn about topics such as accessing media previously stored in Ensemble, creating new videos or slide presentations, editing videos inside Kaltura, creating playlists, and adding media pieces to your Canvas course. We’re going to get started by going over some Kaltura terms and notes about how to access various features before diving into all of the great information about working with this new platform. Kaltura Terms Media Space Library of videos accessible through video.cedarville.edu. Media Space is where you can compose, add, edit,…
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Accessibility Best Practices: Color and Text
Reading Time: 3 minutes Last post, we talked about the importance of captions, best practices for graphics, and tips for writing good alt text. Today, we’re looking at two other aspects of accessibility and usability – using color properly and working with text. Color Using color can be a powerful way to accentuate the information you’re presenting. But color shouldn’t be used as the only way to draw attention to or distinguish items. It’s easy to put warnings or urgent information in red, but that kind of visual indicator just doesn’t work for everyone. People who are red/green colorblind, for example, can have trouble distinguishing between and identifying those colors…