Video Everywhere

This week we'll explore a third option for embedding video within your Blackboard courses - Blackboard's Video Everywhere feature.  Video Everywhere allows Blackboard users (students, faculty, staff) to easily embed their own videos from YouTube within a Blackboard course.  All ICC students, faculty, and staff have access to YouTube via their @lab Google accounts.  While these are the traditional email accounts for students, faculty and staff should use their @lab Google accounts not for email, but for working with Google apps like Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, and YouTube, among others - learn more within our Google Accounts for Faculty and Staff guide.

The Video Everywhere feature is available within Blackboard's content/text box editor, allowing users to make use of this feature "everywhere" in Blackboard that the content editor is available.  Instructors could post weekly videos as part of the Announcements page, include video instructions or sample project videos within Assignments, or start a discussion forum with a video instead of text.  Content editors are even available within the Grade Center, allowing instructors an option for providing video feedback to student assignment submissions.  Students could use the Video Everywhere feature to submit assignments or post to a discussion board, blog, or journal.  

The Video Everywhere icon is available at the start of the bottom toolbar in any content editor box (highlighted below):

Clicking on this icon will open a new window that prompts you to sign in to your YouTube account.  Once you enter your @lab email address and password, you can click on the Browse tab to view thumbnail images for videos already uploaded to your YouTube library.  (Note: If you are already signed in to a different Google account within your browser, you will need to sign out of that account and then into the @lab account.)  For each video you have uploaded to your YouTube account, you will have the option of either inserting the video into Blackboard, previewing the video before deciding to insert it, or editing the video within YouTube.  

Once you select Insert, a screen with additional display options will appear.  Play in place is the default selection with a thumbnail size of 120x90.  A larger display would be more ideal - just be sure to keep the dimensions proportional.  Once you click the Insert button, you may add additional text description, attachments, due dates, etc. to the announcement, assignment, discussion forum, etc.  

Need to learn more about how to record videos and upload them to your YouTube account?  There are several options available:

• Videos can be recorded from a SmartPhone and then uploaded to YouTube directly from your phone.  
• If you wish to provide a demonstration of something on the computer, you could record it using Screencast-O-Matic (check out our Screencast-O-Matic blog post from January 2015).  
• Videos can be edited in Movie Maker (Windows) or QuickTime Movie Recording (Mac) 

The University of Idaho's BbLearn Help page Upload your video to YouTube provides an overview of each of the recording options listed above, as well as an excellent step-by-step overview (with screenshot images) of how to upload videos within a YouTube account.  


Additional Resources

• Blackboard Help's Video Everywhere page
• Video Everywhere ICC TLC blog post
  Note that the "Record from Webcam" feature is no longer available
• Blackboard Learn Quick Hit Video: Video Everywhere Building Block

For additional assistance with incorporating Web Content into your Blackboard courses, contact the TLC at tlc@icc.edu or (309) 694-8908, or visit us in room 240A on the East Peoria campus.

Next week our Blackboard Users' Group will meet in the TLC on Wednesday, April 6 at 12noon or Thursday, April 7 at 3pm - participants may attend either session.

Our May blog series will focus on the necessary steps for ending a semester in a Blackboard course and will include topics about backing up the Grade Center to Microsoft Excel, archiving courses, and bulk deleting users, and preparing a course for the following semester.