Embedding problems in Storyline

I have problems embedding....

Embedding content into a Storyline is a nice way to add video content or a survey into a package so students don't need to leave.

Storyline has a nice feature that allows you to embed videos directly from the code or embed a web object such as a mentimeter poll or Qualtrics survey into your content (other polling and survey tools are available).

Here is what I have learned
 

1. YouTube – works like a dream. Copy the embed code, paste it into the ‘video from website box’. Done. 

2. Qualtrics – ditto. Copy your survey link and paste it into the ‘insert web object’ box. Job done, make a brew.
(side note – I also add a click here to open in browser option)

3. TED – works like, well Southern Rail. It functions but not as you may like it to. Grab the embed code from your TED talk and copy it into notepad. Then look at it! There is a lot of unnecessary junk in there which means that your video will not render well.

<div style="max-width:854px"><div style="position:relative;height:0;padding-bottom:56.25%"><iframe src="https://embed.ted.com/talks/kirby_ferguson_embrace_the_remix" width="854" height="480"  style="position:absolute;left:0;top:0;width:100%;height:100%" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" allowfullscreen></iframe></div></div>

When all you really need is this

<iframe src="https://embed.ted.com/talks/kirby_ferguson_embrace_the_remix" width="854" height="480" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>

4. Mentimeter - works. Less horrifying than TED but there is a minor vexation. If you share the presentation link it asks if you want to create an account. I have one thanks, and I doubt my students want one, more importantly though this option takes up space – which you don’t have in a slide. 

 However, menti offers an embed function, so you can put results into a webpage. You can’t copy this into the video embed box – I tried it, it doesn’t work – but you can copy the embed url and use that as your ‘web object’ and hey presto, no pushy sales box.

<div style='position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; padding-top: 35px; height: 0; overflow: hidden;'><iframe sandbox='allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-presentation' allowfullscreen='true' allowtransparency='true' frameborder='0' height='315' src='https://www.mentimeter.com/embed/c096b6865c/3b8413c9abaa' style='position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%;' width='420'></iframe></div>

Accessibility updates

I am back,

It has only been two years - and in my defence the world has been on fire for a year of that. Plus I don't have a large number of readers do I?

No Katie, you do not!

I was very excited to learn that the December update of Articulate 360 included accessibility features that allow a user to modify the text font and size and change colours. I was less excited to learn that doing this through Blackboard when you publish as a SCORM package was not super simple!

But I have done it.

After you have run your Storyline update anything you publish will have the accessibility tools on the player as a default.

 

As default accessible text is set to off (false). You can change this from the variables menu, built in variables. However, at time of writing, I would advise against having the accessible text on as default as it has a minor effect on the formatting.

So far so simple.

If you are publishing your content for the web - all is good now. However, if you are publishing for a VLE using SCORM there are a few things to note.

1. Articulate support were really helpful, and they pointed me to SCORM cloud as a platform for testing - which was actually really helpful as it means you don't have to faff about deploying things in a VLE.

2. Not all accessibility software is created equal, I think I will end up recommending the free version of helperbird, not because it is necessarily better than other tools but this is the one I got to work most effectively in this scenario (and actually with Blackboard in general)

3. And this is the important bit, as far as I can tell it doesn't work if you set your player to open in 'frameset’. The best option I have found is

SCO launch = new window

Player launch = frameset.

(this can all be tested easily in SCORM Cloud)




On the one hand this is good because the default is new window. On the other hand, I prefer to use 'frameset' as it gets around the pop-up window (and it being blocked by internet settings etc)

How learning with technology is like being on Jury Service.

I am a bit behind with my blog posts – my sincere apologies. Curriculum review, Christmas and deadlines. However, I am currently on jury service and find myself in an over warm, unventilated room with a lot of people and nothing to do so I thought I would write you a blog post about it, related to learning technology of course. I have come up with a few similarities between jury service and implementing learning technologies.

• You only have internet on your phone – how can you ever survive the day!

Well for your students, this is probably the norm. They experience most of their life through a hand-held device so embrace it. Be like them. Look for technologies that are mobile friendly, this way your students can work on the bus or while on jury service! Discussion boards are pretty mobile friendly and a good way of getting students to interact. The native Blackboard ones, hideous as they are, will give you the most reliability but other tools like Piazza also have mobile apps. 

 

Podcasts and short videos are also a good way of providing pre-learning information. Anything under 15 minutes and preferably downloadable (for the underground) would be great. You can make these yourself on Panopto or you can direct your students to online sources like TED talks, YouTube or BoB. It is worth being mindful of time as anything that cannot be downloaded will mean using mobile data or being somewhere with Wi-Fi which restricts the places in which students can interact with the content.

• You have no idea what you are doing.

There is an expectation that you will do something. Activate your classroom? Flip it? Digitise it? However, the instructions about how to do it, when to do it and how long it will take are very vague. We can only apologise for this, but things change all the time.

That is not very helpful when you are expected to do something (beware shameless self-promotion). This is why we developed the IMPLEMnT project. It is a community-based tool which collects different technologies and shows their potential uses. It also has a collection of user case studies that allow the community to share practice around what works and what doesn’t. My next project may be to design something similar for the jury service. IMPLEMnT is currently undergoing some upgrades so it not fully functional but we absolutely welcome comments at this stage!

• It’s so boring…. No, it is really interesting…. Oh dear I am so conflicted!

That’s the thing about jury service it could be so interesting, you could learn so much but in reality, you have better things to do and it just gets in the way. Digital learning is like that – you might like to, it might be cool but where are you going to find the time. Not to mention the fact that you have no idea what you are doing. In answer to this I offer my learned friend the long-term view. Many of the reasons people like me advocate for digital is because in the long run it will save you time. Switching that essay to an online peer assessment may be tough the first time around but next time – think of how much less marking you will have to do.

Creating that pre-learning content will take me days!!! Possibly – but once you have done it… you can re-use it as many times as you like. Of course, this is where the likeness to jury service fails. I am not sure there is a long-term benefit (other than lasting damage to my sanity), although I am in a room with no internet catching up on my writing which is a bonus!

Digital vs Analogue: Top digi tools with analogue equivalents

Mentimeter cards against humanity

Everyone loves mentimeter right? You can get interaction from all 300 of your students by asking them to vote on a concept checking question. It’s great, you make sure they are awake, you see if they are listening and you can guide you class around the general understanding of the room. What is not to like?

Well… there has been a snowstorm and there is no electricity, the internet is dead and the Grinch came along and stole christm everyone’s phones. Now what? How will I ever know if all my students are awake? Fear not we have the answer. I piece of paper with 4 colours on it. Red for answer a), blue for answer b) and so on. Simple. I mean you won’t be able to see on account of the snowstorm, lack of electricity and the resulting darkness but you get the gist.

Post-It on a Padlet

Dr Spencer Silver and Arthur Fry were revolutionary men without whom the world would be a very different place. No workplace would function effectively without those little yellow notes stuck to a computer screen to remind you to but milk on the way home. These men are heroes! What is more, without them and their revolutionary sticky notes how would a person cope when lightning strikes the server room leaving you with no internet to present your truly amazing in-class brainstorming session through Padlet? Enter John J Loud and his ball point pen and you have your lesson back on track!

Both the Padlet and the Post-It are ways of running an active learning class, check out Padlet in HE 101 for more ideas and features and post-it note pedagogy for some hints and tricks. In some cases, if you want students to share digital content like videos or journal articles, Padlet and its functions are necessary however if all you want is students to write concise comments and share them – why not the humble post-it? Plus they look cool on your Instagram feed (whatever that it).

When Trello was young it was a chalk board!

Many of the technologies we use today grew out of a need to streamline processes and make them more mobile and more accessible to a scattered population. Generally speaking, these tools were developed for business not education as that is where the best cost/benefit ratio lies but that does not stop them being useful to education. There is a great case study on IMPLEMnT about using Trello (a project management tool for those unfamiliar) to manage PBL teaching and it is brilliant, especially for longer term projects but there is also a certain administrative burden with it. So if you are new to PBL and want a simple solution to manage the task distribution while you concentrate on other things put yourself into an episode of Mad Men, pour self a vodka martini and write out those roles on the whiteboard.

Answers on a post card please

We have all been there, having spent ages creating a google form (other survey tools are available) to collect information from your cohort about their opinions on medical ethics and where certain practices sit and on a moral scale of Mary Poppins to Philip Green.

Then the unthinkable happens and the heatwave that has been gripping the country for the last 2 months finally takes its toll and the sprinkler systems come on knocking out all the electricity and all you are left with is 300 students... There is nothing for it other than to get them to put the proverbial answers on a post card and collect your information that way.

On a slightly less flippant note there is a moral here and that is twofold.

1. Don’t rely entirely on the internet, no-one ever looked silly for having a plan B.
2. 95% of the digital education tools we use now have an analogue equivalent and if you are stepping in to active learning and don’t want the added hassle of learning a new technology as well, don’t. Make it work the old-fashioned way and once you have that sorted then you can tech it up!

5 ways to flip out

When flipping things like lids, pancakes, classrooms and the occasional desk it should be remembered that some things are more appropriate to flip than others. Basic info, anything that students could look up on Wikipedia is arguably better outside the classroom where students can engage with it in their own time leaving the more valuable time, in a room with an expert, to be devoted to higher order thinking skills. It is also worth noting that there is no formula for flipping a classroom, you should do whatever works for you and the ideas I have written here can be mixed up and used in any way that you feel is relevant.

1.     Low tech (flip a lid)

Before your face-to-face session ask your students to read part of a paper (keep it short or they won’t do it) and give them a couple of questions to answer – make sure you warn them you will be checking answers (see previous parentheses). Begin the session by asking your questions. Multiple choice questions can be answered by showing the relevant number of fingers and keeping hands close allows a level of anonymity. Alternatively get the students to bring the answers on a bit of paper and ask them to discuss with each other.

You can then assess how many got it right and react accordingly. If they all got it… move on to something more advanced. If they didn’t give them an explanation. Then instead of lecturing to them give them a task, one that requires them to use the information they were given in the paper.                 Class flipped, students engaged, no tech needed.

2.     Tech it up a tad (flip a table)

That is great, your lesson has been flipped and your students are engaged. Unfortunately you are in trouble with estates because of the 300 tiny pieces of paper on the floor and there were a few students who didn’t really get involved because they were shy or they hadn’t done the reading. Using mentimeter.com you can do the same again but without the paper. In addition it also allows you to see how many have answered, the students see their peers answers (if you want them to) and anonymity is preserved. Plus they get to play with their beloved smartphones. But why bother when I could do it with paper? Because with no extra effort you can ask the same question again in the middle or at the end of your lecture and see if they have changed their minds. Then you can get the data… who doesn’t love data!

Plus it is all reusable.

3.     Cooking on gas (flip a pancake)

Fine, but all they are really doing is engaging with their reading list, shouldn’t they be doing that anyway? Well probably yes, but you didn’t concept check before so it’s a start! But what if you could give them something a bit different? There is a whole internet full of information out there and it doesn’t even have to be very good as long as you teach students to be critical. TED talks are generally very good but often too long. YouTube can be shorter but of questionable providence. Newspapers, well who knows… but all of this information can be used for effective flipping if it is presented alongside the right questions and can be a great way to inform a session. I know, I know, you have used Mentimeter and it was fun but they are getting tired of it. Yes it is indeed time to up your game. Create an online quiz to concept check your information and you can track how many have done it, what answers they have got right and wrong and then you can frame your session accordingly. That is a good plan but I am not using Blackboard!!! OK, OK, I know you hate it and even if it is the most reliable way to collect information there are others. Google Forms, Qualtrics, and a host of other free web based offerings. Most of which I will admit are prettier and easier to use than our beloved Blackboard.

4.     Olympic flipping (double tuck)

We are on a roll now, classrooms are being flipped left, right and centre but I hear a cry of frustration because you just can’t find the information that you want on the internet. That is ok, we can make our own and it is really quite simple.

• Make a talking head video.
• Record a voice over for your slides.
• Record yourself annotating a diagram on a visualizer.
• Do a screen cast of yourself using some specific software.
• Take camera into your lab and film an experiment.

Most of this can be done quite simply on Panopto using college equipment but as always there are other options, some free, some not. Plus once you have made you video it is there to be used for as long as it is relevant (things that go out of date very quickly are probably not worth the bother).

5.     Flying away (loop the loop)

Let’s go fully interactive! Number 5 is probably only for those of you with a learning technologist available or a very large budget but there is nothing wrong with being a little aspirational. There is software out there that can roll all of the above into 1 neat little interactive online package which will give students a guided learning experience before they even reach a classroom. This isn’t as daft as it sounds. If you have been doing this for a while and you have information and resources that work for you and your students enjoy using there is a case for developing something more professional, particularly if it can be used for other purposes, internal or external, or across multiple courses. Cost benefit sometimes works out in your favour and fortune favours the bold so I you have an idea… ask!