Embedding Video in Moodle (V. 1.

9)
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Why Use Videos in Web Based Lessons?

With interactive videos your students can have a great deal of control over the choice or pace of the lesson. A well-designed video component stimulates the interest level of students. Video shapes an instructional message that is conveyed through a communicative technology. The advent of digital technologies has blurred the distinction between artificial and real representations. Intuitive learners may be good at learning abstract concepts and theories, BUT Sensing learners require various kinds of media that address their senses; audio or video objects, to support their learning process. Videos take to the distance learners psychological, persuasive, and vicarious experiences that are unmatched by other types of media. Cost Effectiveness The Web makes it feasible for higher education institutions and corporate training operations to offer their courses at a distance economically. Instead of requiring video studios and expensive transmission systems, Web based courses use existing computer infrastructure at no extra cost to deliver their courses to users (Spector, Merrill, Merrienboer, & Driscoll (2008). Embedding Video in Moodle (v. 1.9) Video is a very powerful tool to use in a Moodle course, allowing students, for example to catch up on lectures they missed, learn from a "how to" demonstration. It is important to upload your videos to Moodle, storing them on your own server as you retain ultimate control. If your video is hosted elsewhere online (such as youtube) you can simply link to the relevant page by referencing the URL or copy and paste the embedding codes.

The following are examples of attributes that are commonly used with the HTML <embed> tag to displays a video in Moodle.
Attribute allowFullScreen autostart hidden loop playcount volume Description Determines whether to view the video in original size or Determines whether to start the video as soon as the page has loaded. Determines whether to hide the video. For example, if you just want background noise with no video. Determines whether to continously replay the video after it has finished. Determines how many times to repeat the video. Determines how loud the audio should be. Possible Values

True False True False True False True False

A number value Number value between 1 and 100

CODE TO EMBED VIDEO IN MOODLE

The <object> tag defines an embedded object within an HTML document. Let us briefly examine the following code which will be used to embed our video in the content block.

<object width="400" height="350"> <param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /> <param name="wmode" value="transparent" /> <param name="movie" value="http://72.27.213.25/file.php/9/Computer_Assemble.swf" /> <embed width="400px" height="350px" src="http://72.27.213.25/file.php/9/Computer_Assemble.swf" allowfullscreen="true" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" /> </object>

Notice from the code above:

The <object> tag defines an embedded object (video in this instance) within the HTML document. The following attributes are used accordingly: o The width and height - specify the dimensions of the video o The allowFullScreen - controls the size of the video display whether to playback in its original size or occupy the entire screen space o http://72.27.213.25/file.php/9/ - references the source of the movie file on the Moodle server.

INSTRUCTIONS
The following steps are to be carried out in the order indicated to embed a video file in the Moodle content block of the course homepage. This is basically the same procedure that is used to embed videos in other areas/sections of your course site. Step 1 1. Log into your Moodle site and navigate to the course homepage. 2. In order to edit the page you will need to clickthe Turn Editing On button at the top right hand side of the page (Fig. 1).

Figure 1 Turning on the site editing feature

3. Identify the course content block that you intend to use to embed the video file (e.g., Block 4 in Figure 2 below)

Figure 2 - showing a section of course homepage to be used to embed video 4.

Click on the block edit icon, with the pen in hand at the top left corner of block, circled in orange. This will open the HTML/WYSIWYG editor window as shown in Figure 3a below.

Figure 3a The block editing window in WYSIWYG view

5. Use the formatting toolbar to enter and center a caption for the video as shown in Figure 3a above. (Ensure that the video is uploaded to the course files repository, beforehand). 6. Click on the toggle button highlighted in orange (Fig. 3a), on the toolbar to switch to the HTML editing mode. Enter the code displayed or copy and paste the HTML code to embed your video. The screen will change to the HTML editor as seen in Figure 3b below.
7.

Enter, the code given above to embed your video, or copy and paste this code if you had already typed it in an HTML editor. Then Save Changes button to save the video in this block.

Figure 3b The block editing window in HTML view

8. The page will refresh and return to the course homepage. The video will start playing if autostart was set to true, or will can you start/stop with or otherwise control the video with the buttons on the media control bar. 9. This concludes your session! I hope you found the lesson helpful.

References
HTML video codes. Retrieved from http://www.quackit.com/html/codes/html_video_codes.cfm Quiz Creator by Testmoz. Retrieved from https://testmoz.com/ Spector, J. M., Merrill, M. D., Merrienboer, J. V., & Driscoll, M. P. (2008). Handbook of research on educational communications and technology (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. Survey questions by Survey Monkey. Retrieved from http://www.surveymonkey.com/ Tizap.com: html - video codes. Retrieved from http://www.tizag.com/htmlT/htmlvideocodes.php Vimeo tutorial. Embedding a TED video in Moodle 1.9. Retrieved from http://vimeo.com/43678061 W3C Schools: HTML Videos Retrieved from http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_videos.asp