Tag: media

Brightspace Accessibility in Five, 2: Colour

Luke McKnight

Brightspace plus accessibility logo

Brightspace is an excellent tool to provide equitable, inclusive access to course content, documents, and media.

As you create content, take advantage of Brightspace’s built-in tools and the Accessibility Checker to ensure what you share is accessible. Accessible content is inclusive, democratic, and maximizes learner independence.

In the second of this five-part series, we will learn about accessible colour.

Colour

Ensure you choose accessible colours. Text colour needs to have a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 against the background. Additionally, colour should not be used alone to emphasize content or convey meaning.

Accessible colour aids all learners. Primarily, accessible colour is required for people with color blindness. However, smart colour choices benefit all learners in numerous ways:

  • Includes all, regardless of access means.
  • Provides similar appearance regardless of device and user settings.
  • Retains all information if printed in black and white.
  • Reduces eye fatigue, glare from the sun, and allows use of dark/night mode or custom contrast settings.
  • Makes content easier to read for everyone.

To change font colours in Brightspace

  1. Open the Select Colour tool in the Editor toolbar.
  2. Choose a colour and use the built-in contrast checker to ensure accessible colour choices./li>

A ratio of at least 4.5:1 is required. Remember that regardless of colours used, ensure that colour is not the only method used to highlight or differentiate content.

Learn more about accessible colour in the Langara Accessibility Handbook

Accessibility Checker

Brightspace includes a built-in accessibility checker. The checker appears on the second row of the editor toolbar.

  1. Select More Actions to reveal the second row of the toolbar
  2. Select Accessibility Checker

The accessibility checker will note colour contrast issues and offer solutions to improve the contrast of your content. The Accessibility Checker cannot determine if colour is used to convey meaning.

Watch for more posts in the Brightspace Accessibility in Five series coming soon, including:

  1. Link Text
  2. Colour
  3. Headings
  4. Tables
  5. Text Equivalents
  6. Bonus: Accessible Uploads

Brightspace Accessibility in Five, 1: Link Text

Luke McKnight

Brightspace plus accessibility logo

Brightspace is an exceptionally accessible platform. Using Brightspace for your course content, documents, and media is an excellent way to provide equitable, inclusive access to learning material.

Take advantage of Brightspace’s built-in tools and the Accessibility Checker to ensure what you share is accessible. Accessible content is inclusive, democratic, and maximizes learner independence.

In the first of this five-part series, we will learn about adding link text to your Brightspace content.

Link Text

Link text should provide a clear description of the destination, independent of the surrounding text.

Students that with a visual impairement may use screen reader software that allows them to navigate by links. Descriptive link text helps orient and guide them to resources. A list of “click here”, “click here”, “Read more”, etc. is not going to provide users with any meaningful information. Pasting raw URLs in Brightspace should also be avoided as, for example, heading “https://iweb.langara.ca/edtech/blog” is jarring and not a useful indicator of what that link would lead to.

Additionally, sighted users can easily spot or relocate a link when it has a clear text description. As well, all users benefit from quality link text to understand why they would want to click on the link.

Effective link text should be:

  • Descriptive
    • Describe the destination
  • Concise
    • Try to limit link text to a few words
  • Unique
    • If two links on a page go to the same destination, they should have the same link text, otherwise ensure all link text is unique
  • Visually distinct
    • Links should be visually distinct from surrounding text. In Brightspace, stick with default formatting (blue underlined text) for links.

To Link Text in Brightspace

  1. Highlight the text to be linked and select Add/Edit Link
  2. The highlighted text will appear in the Title field. Paste the URL in the Link field and select Create.

Find more information about link text in the Langara Accessibility Handbook and read more about adding hyperlinks in Brightspace.

Accessibility Checker

Brightspace includes a built-in accessibility checker. The checker appears on the second row of the editor toolbar.

  1. Select More Actions to reveal the second row of the toolbar
  2. Select Accessibility Checker

The accessibility checker will highlight many accessibility issues and offer solutions to correct them.

Watch for more posts in the Brightspace Accessibility in Five series coming soon, including:

  1. Link Text
  2. Colour
  3. Headings
  4. Tables
  5. Text Equivalents
  6. Bonus: Accessible Uploads

‘De-clutter your Kaltura media’ competition winners!

Julian Prior

Krista Kieswetter receiving her prize of a book and gift card.

Back in October 2022 we launched a competition to see who could delete the most content from their Kaltura My Media, in order to help us save on storage and bandwidth costs. We were delighted with the response so a big thank-you to everyone who took on the challenge and deleted unwanted content to help us out. We are happy to announce that Krista Kieswetter from Continuing Studies (pictured) was the winner of the competition for which she received Marie Kondo’s book Joy at Work and an Amazon gift card. Runners-up were Yue-Ching Chen (Recreation Studies) and Katrina Erdos (Geography) who both receive gift cards.

While on the subject of deleting Kaltura media we would like to direct you to our Kaltura media retention policy which we recently formulated based on good practice from other institutions and in consultation with our Records Management and Privacy Manager. As well as continuing to encourage you to archive and delete any unwanted or unplayed media, we will be carrying out periodic deletions of unplayed media, at the end of the summer and fall semesters.

As ever, if you have any questions about our Kaltura media retention policy (or other Kaltura issues) please email edtech@langara.ca.

Captions are now automatic on all new Kaltura media

Luke McKnight

New media content added to Kaltura MediaSpace will be automatically captioned, whether uploaded via the Langara MediaSpace website at https://mediaspace.langara.ca, or via My Tools > My Media in Brightspace. These captions are machine-generated and should be available within 30 minutes of uploading your file. All media, including screen recordings, file uploads, web recordings, and most YouTube imports, will have captions added when uploaded to Kaltura. These are closed captions that can be deactivated by the media owner and when available, toggled on and off by the viewer. Existing media—uploaded before October 18th, 2022—will not have captions automatically added but you can request captions for this media.

Keep in mind, machine-generated captions are only 85% accurate and will not meet the requirements of students with closed captioning accommodations. Students requiring an accommodation will contact Accessibility Services, who will inform you directly. If you have a student that requires closed captions, edit your captions to ensure they are 99% accurate or contact Langara’s Assistive Technologist to request assistance with human-edited closed captions. 

We developed a Closed Captions slideshow (below) to provide step-by-step instructions for all you need to know about captioning your media in Kaltura MediaSpace/My Media.

five cartoon figures underneath a cloud that reads Kaltura MediaSpace

De-clutter your Kaltura media

Julian Prior

Spark joy in your life and win a prize

You may have heard of internationally-renowned tidying consultant Marie Kondo and her trademark KonMari method. The method is based on the idea that we could all benefit from a radical de-cluttering of our home and work spaces; get rid of anything that doesn’t spark joy in our lives or isn’t meaningful to us in some way. Who doesn’t like a good spring clean of their stuff but what has any of this got to do with Kaltura you might ask?

Well, digital de-cluttering seems to be all the rage these days. From deleting unused online accounts to tidying up documents and folders on computer hard drives, we are being urged to de-clutter our digital life in order to gain some control back and create more mental spaces that are meaningful to us. Furthermore, there is usually a cost (both environmental and financial) associated with storing digital files. Although the price of physical storage (hard drives and SSDs) has come down in recent years, cloud storage costs remain relatively high, particularly when it comes to large files such as video. And it is here that we in EdTech need your help.

What is Kaltura?

For those who don’t know, the platform we use to store and share video and audio files is called Kaltura. You can access the platform directly or share media files with your students via an integration in your Brightspace courses called My Media. For the past few years we have been part of a ‘shared service’ of BC post-secondary institutions who have stored Kaltura media at UBC without any extra costs for storage and bandwidth. This agreement recently came to an end and we now pay extra for storage and bandwidth over a set amount.

Why de-clutter my Kaltura Media?

Because it will spark joy in your life! Hopefully. What’s certain is that it will save us a substantial amount of money if we can cut down the number of large video/audio files currently stored on Kaltura’s servers.

How do I do it?

Simples! We’ve made a video to show you how to delete your Kaltura media. Before deleting though, make sure you have an archive back-up of your original video/audio file! You can download the original from Kaltura or if you already have the original you can store it on an internal or removable hard drive or on one of the numerous cloud services available.

What’s in it for me?

Other than the joy it will spark in your life and the kudos that you will earn from EdTech? Prizes! After de-cluttering your Kaltura media send an email to edtech@langara.ca with the subject Kaltura de-clutter and the number of videos/audio files you have deleted. We’ll enter you into a draw to win some great prizes including Amazon/Apple/Google gift cards and a copy of Marie Kondo’s book Joy at Work: Organizing your professional life. Closing date is Wednesday November 30.

Can you help me?

We can’t de-clutter your media for you but if you have any questions just ping an email to edtech@langara.ca or jump into our Zoom virtual support drop-in (8.30 a.m. to 4.30 p.m. M-F). You can also read our Retention Policy for Kaltura media.

Embedding Library Media

Ari Crossby

Due to issues with certain browsers and browser versions, some Brightspace users may encounter problems loading embedded library (EZProxy) media in your Brightspace course. Users should always check their browser’s cookie settings (see the “3rd-party cookies problem” item on the Help with Student Learning Tools FAQ) to ensure that they aren’t actively blocking the content, but this method doesn’t always work.
To make sure that everyone in your course can access library media items, please include the following when embedding library media in your course.

    1. A direct link to the video or audio that loads in a separate window or tab. When creating the Quicklink, please choose “New Window” from the Target options.
      Screencap of the left end of the format options bar in the HTML Editor, with the cursor pointing at the Quicklink button. 
      screencap of the Insert Quicklink options window
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
      If you are creating a link directly from Content, using Upload/Create > Create a Link, please make sure to choose the “Open as External Resource” option.
      screencap of the Upload/Create menu, with the Create a Link option selected
       
      Screencap of the options window for the Create Link option in Content

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

  1. It’s also a good idea to include basic Title/Author/Publication information for the media, if applicable; when using embed code, please include this before or after the video. This allows students to search for the content on their own, outside of Brightspace.

Padlet, What is It, and How It Will Improve Student Engagement?

Ari Crossby

Decorative

Have you worked within a discussion board and wished it was more engaging? Hoped for a platform that had a visually appealing user experience? Have you longed for an intuitive space that allowed intuitive posting across all devices? Padlet may be the tool you are looking for.

Padlet is a digital notice board that allows users to post media, documents and links and collaborate with a “wall” based environment. An online platform that describes itself as “somewhere between a doc and a full-fledged website builder”, Padlet allows open dialogue from all users, instructors or students.

The interactive nature of Padlet is generally described as easy to use and engaging. Users can collaborate on real-time, shared boards by adding and editing posts. Users can add rich multimedia, such as images, links, and documents. Posts can be arranged in various formats to best suit the content, including whiteboards, grids, timelines, and maps. Padlet offers a range of interactive features such as anonymous contributions, comments, and reactions.

An example of how a Padlet wall can be organized.

 

Padlet is a highly versatile tool, limited only by our imagination. Some of the benefits of using Padlet to improve student engagement include:

  • Allows brainstorming and live question bank.
  • Ease of collaboration and organization.
  • Create a gallery of student work.
  • Get feedback from students with exit tickets.
  • Anonymous posting allows for inclusive participation and can empower students to share ideas.
  • Makes learning visible to the instructor and the students.
  • Allows the instructor to adjust their level of instruction to fit with students’ current level of learning.
  • Responses remain on the Padlet board for future reference while being shared in real-time with the whole class.
  • The Padlet walls can be embedded into the Langara learning management system (Brightspace).
Screenshot of a Padlet wall embedded within a Brightspace course.

Padlet can be used to:

  • Assess
  • Collaborate
  • Communicate
  • Create
  • Engage
  • Reflect

We will explore specific features of Padlet in future posts. If you are interested in triallingPadlet, please email EdTech to request a license. Afterwards, visit the Langara Padlet login page to login with your Langara account. This tool is centrally supported by Langara EdTech, and detailed help is available on our EdTech website or through the Padlet Help website.

Primary photograph by Keira Burton from Pexels used under Pexels License.

References and Additional Reading

Edwards, L. (2020, October 19). What is Padlet and how does it work for education? Retrieved January 11, 2022, from Tech Teaching website.

Meyer, K. A. (2014). Student engagement in online learning: What works and why. In Student Engagement Online: What Works and Why (pp. 1–14). John Wiley & Sons, Inc. DOI link.

Norman, M. (2017). Synchronous Online Classes: 10 Tips for Engaging Students. Faculty Focus. Faculty Focus website.

Padlet Features. (n.d.). Retrieved January 1, 2022, from https://padlet.com/features.

Simon, E. (2018). 10 Tips for Effective Online Discussions. EDUCAUSE Review. EduCause website.

Stake, J. (2021, January 22). Padlet For teachers: The best tips, tricks, and ideas for your classroom. We Are Teachers. We Are Teachers website.

Ed Tech Sandbox Sessions

Ari Crossby

What is an Ed Tech sandbox?

Playground

The Ed Tech sandbox is a small, contained space to safely learn and practice using various educational technologies and tools. Participants may explore a specific tool or a range of tools that can be adopted to support a specific teaching or learning goal. To create a safe environment and allow time for practice, enrollment is limited to 10 participants.

Do you want to gain confidence with teaching & learning tools?

These weekly sessions are an opportunity to develop an understanding of how technologies and tools can be effectively used in teaching, learning, and assessment before introducing them in the classroom.

When are the sessions held?

Ed Tech sandbox sessions are planned for every Friday from 11:00 am – 12:30 pm. Participants choose whether to attend via Zoom or in-person.

Upcoming sessions

October 22nd – Kaltura Mediaspace and Capture

Kaltura Capture controls.

Using video in your course is a great way to engage students and present learning content in alternative ways, following the principles of UDL.

In this session we will demonstrate recording your screen, using the Kaltura Capture application to record your screen, and uploading the recording to Mediaspace. There will be lots of time to ask questions and play.

October 29th – Brightspace Rubrics Tool

""A Brightspace rubric can:

  • Be reused (they can be copied and used in multiple course shells).
  • Set out expectations and criteria for students.
  • Provide grading transparency and clear feedback.

Join us to learn how to associate rubrics with assignments, graded discussion topics and grade items.

Increasing accessibility of course content: How to create closed-captioned videos

Ari Crossby

Increasing accessibility of course content: How to create closed-captioned videos

What are closed captions?

Closed captions are a transcription of dialogue that is added to a video or digital presentation and, when turned on, appears as text on the bottom of the screen. The primary purpose of captions is to support people who are deaf or hard-of-hearing. However, captions have also been shown to support the learning of students who speak English as an additional language, students with learning disabilities, and students who are new to a discipline and may be unfamiliar with the jargon and unique terminology.

Share closed-captioned videos with students in four easy steps

Step one: Upload your video to Kaltura MediaSpace

Before you can add closed captions to a video you will need to upload it to your MediaSpace library. If you are unfamiliar with uploading videos, click through the steps below. If you have experience with MediaSpace, skip ahead to find out how to add closed captions.

Step two: Add and edit closed captions in Kaltura MediaSpace

The following video will walk you through the steps of ordering and editing machine-generated closed captions in MediaSpace.

Direct video link: Kaltura MediaSpace: Adding closed captions

Step three: Publish your video in Kaltura MediaSpace

Newly uploaded media is set to Private by default so after adding closed captions, you will need to publish your video.

Setting a video to Unlisted allows you to share your video with students but makes it unsearchable. Setting a video to Published allows you to share your video or make it available in a Channel or playlist.

""Save the changes, and then Click Go To Media to view the video, or Go To My Media to see the video in your MyMedia library.

Step four: Share your video with your students in Brightspace

You are now ready to share your closed-captioned video with students.  In Brightspace, you can insert Kaltura videos anywhere you find the HTML Editor.