Importable Canvas Resources on Canvas Commons

CATL has created several Canvas resources that UWGB instructors can import directly into their Canvas courses through the Canvas Commons. To import any of the following resources in your course, access Commons from the global navigation menu while signed into Canvas, and search for the resource by its title below. You can import the resource directly into your course(s) right from Commons. For full instructions, please see the KnowledgeBase guide Canvas (Instructors) – Importing a Resource from Canvas Commons.

  • UWGB Student Resource Module – This importable module provides information to students on how to use Canvas and how to get help from student support services at UW-Green Bay.
  • UWGB Name Pronunciation Recording Assignment – This importable assignment guides students through the process of making a very brief audio or video recording of themselves pronouncing their own name, saving that recording to their Kaltura My Media library, and then adding a share link to that recording to their Canvas user profile’s “Links” section. Students and instructors can then access each other’s profiles through the People page or discussions to listen to each other’s name recordings and learn how to pronounce each other’s names.
  • Kognito Training Assignments – Assign a Kognito training simulation to students as part of your course to prepare them to engage with issues of mental health, inclusion, and wellness. Find out more about Kognito and each available training on the UWGB Wellness Center’s website.
    • UWGB Kognito “At-Risk Mental Health for Students”
    • UWGB Kognito “Cultivating Inclusive Communities”
    • UWGB Kognito “Sexual Misconduct Prevention”
    • UWGB Kognito “Alcohol and Other Drugs”

Teaching & Learning in Point‐To‐Point (P2P) and Point‐To‐ Anywhere (P2A) Classrooms

Definitions

Point‐To‐Point (P2P) and Point‐To‐Anywhere (P2A) rooms are used at UW‐Green Bay to teach in the Interactive Video modality. Both room types allow for a synchronous class experience with a combination of in‐person and virtual students. Class sessions are not recorded. There is a Special Note added to these classes if they are campus‐to‐campus. A movie camera icon Camera Movie Video Record Film - Film Camera Icon Png, Transparent Png , Transparent Png Image - PNGitem is used to represent Interactive Video modality in the Schedule of Classes.

General Considerations

  1. Get comfortable with the equipment and modality prior to the start of the semester by testing it out and using resources such as the UKnowIt guide on P2A rooms and P2P rooms.
  2. Try to ensure that student learning is an equitable experience for all students, regardless of location.
  3. Consider student engagement as a continual area of importance and focus, both in‐person and online.
  4. Be prepared in advance with back-up plans in case technical and logistical issues arise during teaching.

For assistance or discussion of pedagogical strategies and best practices related to these types of rooms and the Interactive Video modality, please reach out to CATL (CATL@uwgb.edu) to schedule a consultation. If you need physical access to a room or have an issue with the technology in it, please contact GBIT (GBIT@uwgb.edu).

Tips for Success

Engage in advance preparation to support success for you and the students.

  • Ensure your use of technology and online components are aligned with your learning outcomes, as this is the most successful way to utilize the technological environment. For example, if your learning outcomes are tied to specialized knowledge about the field of chemistry and thermodynamics, integrating a Zoom poll that checks for understanding (i.e., which statement best represents the second law of thermodynamics?) could prove to be beneficial. (Howell, 2022; Raes et al., 2019)
  • Visit the classroom to become more familiar with its technology. Test out all equipment. You can attempt to share your materials on the virtual platform of Zoom or Teams with a volunteer ahead of time from the classroom. You can also do this alone as long as you take a second device to the room. [Note: You may need to step in the hallway when testing the second device] On one device, begin the meeting as the host. On the second device, use the invitation/link to access and to enter the meeting. This will simulate a second user in the meeting. Since you will have the same permissions on either computer, attempt to share any materials (presentations, videos) you will be presenting via the button in the platform (i.e., Zoom or Teams) while viewing it on the other device to ensure that it works as intended.
  • Before class each day, preload all files, pages, and/or programs that you will be accessing to reduce the wait time for students. This is especially true of videos that are streamed, including those on YouTube or in Kaltura. Preloading can be done on your own personal laptop (highly recommended method) or by using the podium computer in the room. If you are using your own device(s) in the room to project, you can connect via ShareLink, or preferably, to the HDMI cable in the room (please see our UKnowIt guide on P2A rooms).
  • Only have files, pages, and/or programs that are necessary for your class open during class. Unnecessary applications or windows could slow down the computer and lead to loading failures.

Promote equitable experience for your students across modalities.

  • Plan activities that involve both in‐person and remote students and promote their interaction. For example, alternate between online and in‐person participants in discussions (Bockorny et al., 2023).
  • Promote good communication by repeating or paraphrasing questions and/or answers from in‐person students to your remote learners even when there are drop microphones in the room, and by reading aloud what is in online chat and paraphrasing online student comments within the room itself.
  • Facilitate community‐building to help all students feel valued as members of the class (McGee & Reis, 2012).

Facilitate student engagement in-person and online.

  • Use online tools such as Hypothesis, OneDrive, Teams whiteboard, or Zoom whiteboard to allow social annotation and collaborative technological spaces for students to work. [Note: Some tools would potentially require in‐person students to be online in‐class as well] (Bower et al., 2014).
  • Facilitate small group discussions by giving clear directions, and participating both in‐person and online, being intentional about online students sharing out to the in‐person students, and vice‐versa.
    • One possibility is to monitor or join briefly each small group as the instructor. In addition to circulating in the classroom, you can potentially join virtual students via Teams or Zoom on a secondary device to engage in the conversation. [Note: You may need to step in the hallway when joining virtual groups.]
    • Another option for small group work is to elect group leaders, speakers, and/or notetakers to help facilitate reporting back to the larger class.
  • For large group discussions, consider having a student, or multiple students, monitor the chat so that interactions between remote and in‐person students can be as seamless as possible. (Raes et al., 2019)
  • Create online polling options (via Zoom or other platforms) for students to engage in rapid responses as class progresses, gathering real‐time feedback. [Note: In‐person students may need to be online as well]
    • Begin each class period with a warm‐up activity designed to engage students in both modalities. Use online polling as described above or try strategies such as playing videos or music or having a question of the day for people to answer in chat or out loud.

Create alternative ways of accessing materials when technological or logistical issues arise.

  • Access plays a critical part in the success of all students, so ensure that regardless of modality, everyone can access course content, assignments, activities, discussion boards, and other class materials in a digital format.
  • Be clear with students about your plan for class time. For example, you could proactively draft an agenda for each class session and publish it in Canvas. This way, if issues with connectivity arise, students will know what to do, what they can work on, and where to find materials applicable to the week or module. As with face‐ to‐face classes, interactive video courses are not recorded.

Common Technological Issues

  • Lag time between muting, unmuting, and responding to questions or prompts
    • Expect lag time between asking questions of remote students and their response. Practice patience in wait time to give ample opportunity for remote student participation. You can discuss the issue as an entire class, so that in‐person students know that you will wait before calling on anyone to respect that time delay.
  • Inaccurate position locking of voice‐tracking cameras
    • In‐class cameras in the P2P and P2A classrooms use voice tracking to follow the speaker, but they sometimes ‘lock in’ on someone who is not the intended primary speaker at the time. This is most likely to happen due to stray noise in the classroom. If it happens, the audio from the primary speaker may temporarily not be as clear. To bring the camera back to the instructor or the student who is talking, try to reduce background noise (classroom chatter, music, etc.) and have the person speak a bit more loudly for a few seconds. The camera should re‐position itself on them.
  • Unfamiliarity with Zoom’s customizable settings (for P2A classrooms only)
    • Not all P2A classes use Zoom technology for sessions, but if instructors are using it, they may find that the default settings feel too restrictive or not restrictive enough. There are many features in Zoom you can choose to use or change. These include: activating a ‘waiting room’ that requires acceptance by the host to join, allowing or restricting screensharing, muting microphones, hiding profile photos, restricting chat, or even immediately suspending all participant activities. These options can be changed. More information on the host controls and Zoom settings can be found here.

Contact Us!

Do you have a tip for your peers on teaching in these classrooms? Please let us know by writing to CATL@uwgb.edu.

High-Impact Practices

What are High Impact Practices?

High Impact Practices (HIP) are experiences that engage students with real-world problems, allow students to interact with their instructors, fellow students and community members, encourage students to explore new interests and develop new passions, and provide students with opportunities to challenge themselves and achieve things they may not have thought possible.

Some examples of High Impact Practices include:

  • First year seminars
  • Common intellectual experiences
  • Learning communities
  • Writing-intensive courses
  • Collaborative assignments and projects
  • Undergraduate research, scholars and creative activities
  • Diversity/global learning
  • Service learning/community-based learning
  • Internships
  • Capstone courses

Why do HIPs make a difference?

Key characteristics of HIPs is that they are effortful and help students build substantive relationships. They engage students across disciplines while providing them with rich feedback. They also help students apply and test what they are learning in new situations, and provide opportunities to reflect on the people they are becoming.

High Impact Practices such as those listed above have numerous positive impacts on students and on the institution, such as increased student persistence and GPA, higher rates of student-faculty interaction, increased critical thinking and writing skills, greater appreciation for diversity, and higher student engagement overall.

In short, deep approaches to learning, such as High Impact Practices, help students make richer more lasting connections to material through an emphasis on integration, synthesis and reflection.

10 Dos and Don’ts of Digital Accessibility

Accessibility involves designing materials so that as many people as possible can engage with them, regardless of users’ physical or cognitive abilities. Meeting baseline accessibility standards is key to inclusive course design, and the digital age has made it faster and easier than ever to create accessible materials. Small changes to a document, like using a clear font and appropriately-sized text, can significantly improve the user experience. To get you started, we have assembled a list of some critical “dos and don’ts” of digital accessibility, along with guides from Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint, and Canvas for each category.

Contents

Text Styles

Screenshot of black text displayed on a white background that reads, ‘Your video submission must be in MP4 format.’ The words ‘MP4 format’ are emphasized in red text font and yellow highlight.

Don’t… ❌

Use underlining, highlighting, or text color alone to denote emphasis or create meaning.

Screenshot of black text on a white background that reads, Important: Your video submission must be in MP4 format. The words Important and MP4 format are emphasized in bold.

Do… ✅

Use bold or italic styling sparingly to emphasize words or short phrases within the body of a text. To call attention to an entire sentence or section, consider writing “Important” before the content.

Use underlining only for hyperlinks to assist people who are color blind in differentiating them from regular text. Similarly, avoid using text color and highlighting alone for emphasis as they may be challenging to distinguish. Some screen readers do not announce bold or italicized text, so refrain from using text styles alone to create meaning.

Headings & Document Structure

Image containing two screenshots. The first screenshot shows a document with the word ‘Purpose’ emphasized in blue and bolded text. Below ‘Purpose’ is plain black text that reads, ‘In this activity, you will learn about.’ The document ends with the word ‘Task’ also emphasized in blue and bolded text. The second screenshot displays the text style pane in Microsoft Word. It indicates that the text in the screenshot is formatted with the ‘Normal’ text style.

Don’t… ❌

Create headings by manually adjusting text sizes, styles, or colors.

Image containing two screenshots from Microsoft Word. The first screenshot shows a document with the word ‘Purpose’ using the built-in Heading 2 style option. Below ‘Purpose’ is plain black text that reads, ‘In this activity, you will learn about.’ The document ends with the word ‘Task’ also using the Heading 2 style option. The second screenshot, positioned below the first, displays the Heading style panel in Microsoft Word.

Do… ✅

Use built-in heading styles in Word and the Canvas Rich Content Editor to organize content hierarchy. In PowerPoint, make sure to use an accessible template, add a title to every slide, and double-check slide reading order.

The built-in heading styles in these applications add special HTML code that makes it easier for people who use assistive tools to navigate a document.

Screenshot of a hyperlink formatted as a raw web URL, shown in blue underlined text. Below the URL, there is another hyperlink formatted in blue underlined text that reads ‘Click Here’.

Don’t… ❌

Use messy URLs or hyperlinks that do not make sense without context.

Screenshot of a hyperlink formatted in blue underlined text that reads ‘Spring 2023 TEG Call’. Below the text, there is another hyperlink formatted in blue underlined text that reads ‘uwgb.edu/catl’.

Do… ✅

Create concise hyperlinks with text that identifies or describes the link in a self-contained way.

Providing meaningful links helps people understand what to expect when they click the link. It also makes it easier for users who rely on assistive technology to navigate between links.

Images

A screenshot showing an image of the Cofrin Library in the Canvas RCE (Rich Content Editor). A text box below the image displays the Canvas HTML editor view of the Cofrin Library image with no descriptive alt text. The image file name consisting of numbers is used as the alt text, and it is underlined in red to indicate that it is not a sufficient description.

Don’t… ❌

Use an image alone to provide information.

A screenshot of the Canvas RCE. On the left is an image of the Cofrin Library. To the right is the Image Options panel in the Canvas RCE, including a field for alt text. Below that is a screenshot of the Canvas HTML editor view. The alt text for the image is underlined in red and reads 'UW-Green Bay Cofrin Library Centered amongst snow surrounded by snow covered treetops.'

Do… ✅

Add alt text or captions to describe images that convey information in Word, PowerPoint, and Canvas. Mark other images as “decorative” so they are ignored by screen readers.

Providing alt text or a caption helps people with low or no vision understand images.

Audio & Video

Screenshot displaying text that reads ‘Video without CC and Transcript.’ Below the text is a video titled ‘The Kiss by Gustav Klimt: Great Art Explained.’ The video does not display an option to turn on closed captioning.

Don’t… ❌

Share audio or video without closed captioning or another text alternative.

Image containing two screenshots side by side. The first screenshot displays text that reads ‘Video with CC and transcript.’ Below the text is a video titled ‘The Kiss by Gustav Klimt: Great Art Explained’ with a red circle positioned over the closed captioning button on the video player. Below the video is a transcription box. The second screenshot on the right displays the Kaltura My Media options, with the ‘Captions & Enrich’ option highlighted in grey. This option allows users to edit the auto-generated captions in Kaltura My Media.

Do… ✅

Upload your recordings into Kaltura (My Media) for automatic captions or search for media that is captioned. For spoken audio that does not have a visual component, such as a podcast stream, provide a transcript instead.

Captions and transcripts allow people with limited or no hearing to engage with audio and video media, plus they benefit those with other access barriers. Users can also benefit from having a searchable transcript.

Lists

Screenshot of the Canvas Rich Content Editor (RCE) displaying an unformatted numbered list titled ‘List with No Formatting.’ The list contains the items ‘1. Red, 2. Blue, 3. Yellow’ without proper formatting. A gray box outlines the HTML editor view of the Canvas RCE, showing the use of heading 3 tags for the page title and paragraph tags for the list of colors.

Don’t… ❌

Manually type numbers or bullets to create lists.

Screenshot of the Canvas Rich Content Editor (RCE) displaying a properly formatted numbered list titled ‘List with Formatting.’ The list contains the items ‘1. Red, 2. Blue, 3. Yellow’ with proper formatting. An inset screenshot shows the HTML editor view of the Canvas RCE, including the tags which give the list proper formatting. Another inset screenshot displays the list formatting options available in the 'more' menu of the RCE toolbar, which is circled in red.

Do… ✅

Use the bullet and numbering buttons in the toolbars of Word, PowerPoint, and the Canvas Rich Content Editor.

The built-in list formatting options in these applications add special HTML code that makes it easier for people who use assistive technologies to navigate a document.

Tables

An image containing three screenshots. The first screenshot shows a table in the Canvas RCE. The text above the table reads ‘Table without a Header Row/Column and Caption.’ The table contains syllabus assignments with weeks labeled 1-2 in the right columns, and weekdays Monday and Wednesday in the first row of the table. The second screenshot displays a table in the Canvas RCE. The text above the table reads ‘Table Used for Formatting Non-Tabular Content.’ It seems that this table is intended for formatting purposes and not for displaying tabular data. The third screenshot, positioned below the first two, presents the HTML editor view of the Canvas RCE. The code illustrates a table that lacks a caption and header row/column.

Don’t… ❌

Subdivide and merge cells, omit captions and row/column headers, or use tables as a “hack” for formatting content.

A screenshot depicting a properly formatted table in the Canvas RCE. The table is captioned ‘Weekly Course Schedule,’ with the header row displaying the weekdays Monday and Wednesday, while the header column includes weeks 1-3. A text box below the image displays the HTML editor view of the Canvas RCE. The words 'caption' and 'col' are underlined in the editor, indicating how a table with a caption and header columns are coded.

Do… ✅

Use tables to present data in rows and columns with a logical layout. Use the built-in tools in Word and the accessibility checker in the Canvas Rich Content Editor to include a caption and set a header row and/or header column for data tables. Avoid using tables in PowerPoint if possible, but if you do, follow these guidelines.

Adding a caption and setting a header row/column with the built-in formatting options adds special HTML code that helps users who rely on assistive technology understand and navigate the table. Screen readers may struggle to interpret the layout and hierarchy of the information presented when tables are used to format content other than data. Subdivided and merged cells also pose challenges for users that navigate with a keyboard or rely on screen readers.

Charts & Graphs

Screenshot of a pie graph titled Sales created in Microsoft Word. The pie graph consists of four slices of different colors, with blue being the largest, followed by orange, gray, and yellow. The legend positioned below the pie graph indicates the blue represents the 1st quarter, orange represents the 2nd quarter, gray represents the 3rd quarter, and yellow represents the 4th quarter.

Don’t… ❌

Use color alone to create meaning in charts and graphs.

An image containing two screenshots. The first displays a pie chart titled 'Sales' created in Microsoft Word. The Chart Elements settings are displayed with the boxes for title, data labels, and legend all checked. The second screenshot, positioned on the right, displays the Format Data Labels panel, which presents additional label options. A text box below reads 'Labeling chart and graph element settings in MS Word.'

Do… ✅

Directly label elements in charts and graphs and/or use shapes or patterns to differentiate elements.

People who are color blind or who have low vision may have trouble differentiating colors.

Scanned Documents

Screenshot of a scanned image of a book page in Adobe Acrobat. A solid blue box overlays a paragraph of text in the image, indicating that each word in the book is not scannable. Below the image, there is a text box that reads “Scanned image without a searchable text.”

Don’t… ❌

Use photos or scans of text without checking for accessibility.

Screenshot of a scanned image of a book page in Adobe Acrobat. Blue highlight overlays a paragraph showing each word is scannable. Below the image, there is a text box that reads 'PDF with searchable text done through the Scan & OCR function in Adobe Acrobat.'

Do… ✅

Find an alternative accessible resource or use the optical character recognition (OCR) tools in Adobe Acrobat to turn a scan into an accessible PDF with selectable text and a logical reading order.

Digital scans of physical texts are encoded like images and are not readable by most screen readers. OCR converts a scanned document into a format that allows people who use assistive technologies to engage with the text, plus it benefits all users by making the document searchable.

Accessibility Checkers

Screenshot of the Canvas RCE displaying some sample headings and text, including text that is light gray and very difficult to read. Under the RCE box, there is a red circle around the accessibility checker indicator, which notifies the editor that there are three accessibility issues within the page.

Don’t… ❌

Ignore the accessibility checker tools in Word, PowerPoint, and Canvas.

Screenshot of the Canvas RCE with the Accessibility Checker panel on the right-hand side. The panel highlights three accessibility issues and provides recommendations for how to fix them. The first issue identified in the panel is the insufficient color contrast ratio for light gray text against a white background.

Do… ✅

Use the accessibility checker tools in Word, PowerPoint, and Canvas to scan for and repair common issues – including many of the issues described in this resource – before exporting, publishing, or sharing materials. For Canvas, you can also use the UDOIT accessibility checker to scan your whole course.

Using built-in accessibility checker tools can help ensure that your course materials meet accessibility standards.

Resources by Application

For accessibility resources specific to Word, PowerPoint, and Canvas, respectively, please see the guides and tip sheets below:

Need Help?

This resource is meant to be a starting point for best practices in digital accessibility, but if you have questions beyond the scope of this guide, we welcome you to reach out to CATL! Send us an email at CATL@uwgb.edu or fill out our consultation request form to discuss digital accessibility in your own courses.

PlayPosit: Time-Saving Tips

What is PlayPosit? And what can PlayPosit do for you?

What is PlayPosit? PlayPosit is a video resource tool integrated with Canvas that allows instructors to create interactive videos. Using PlayPosit terminology, these videos are referred to as bulbs. Instructors can embed questions or other engagement check-points, called interactions, into recorded lecture videos, YouTube videos, or other Kaltura video recordings. For a more detailed summary of PlayPosit, please see this previous blog created by CATL.

What can PlayPosit do for you? PlayPosit can be used to create alternative learning materials for your course and offers more options besides traditional text-based resources for students to engage with.  Using bulb interactions, you can check student knowledge during a recorded lecture video, provide extra materials via external URL links to highlight a key learning point, provide space for students to anonymously ask clarifying questions, or even allow students to record time-stamped comments and notes for later review. A more detailed breakdown of the different types of interactions offered within PlayPosit bulbs as well as a few use cases like creating quizzes, breaking up long lectures, and much more can be found here.

Increasing Dialogue: How can PlayPosit help you collect student feedback?

Another powerful feature of this tool is that you can also use PlayPosit within your Canvas course to get live, synchronous feedback from your students. In the past, clickers or Kahoot! may have been used as live polling tools, or even Zoom Polls or Microsoft Teams. Now, you can use a similar feature included with UWGB’s PlayPosit license called PlayPosit Broadcast. 

If you do not wish to use PlayPosit Broadcast as a live polling feature, you can still increase course dialogue by utilizing the Discussion interaction within your bulbs. This type of interaction allows students to leave timestamped comments and questions within a video, creating a discussion forum within the PlayPosit activity itself. Instructors can modify the discussion forum interaction settings to prevent students from seeing their classmates’ comments until they have posted a comment themselves. You can also moderate discussion forum interactions as the instructor within the PlayPosit interface. Creating PlayPosit discussion forums for points may also offer students an alternative to traditional Canvas Discussions.  

Assignments and Beyond: How can PlayPosit be used for low-stakes or ungraded activities?

A common misconception about PlayPosit is that you can only create PlayPosit bulbs as graded Canvas Assignments. This is not the case. If you would like students to take a PlayPosit assessment or engage with an interactive video activity for points that are reflected within your Canvas gradebook, you can indeed build the PlayPosit bulb as an assignment within Canvas, however you can also build ungraded PlayPosit activities for your students. 

Student self-assessment activities and interactive, supplemental video resources can encourage active learning within the classroom, especially for asynchronous learning environments. Both types of student engagement activities can be created using PlayPosit, and may work best as low-stakes assignments or as ungraded items in Canvas. To create an ungraded PlayPosit bulb, add your PlayPosit bulb as an embedded item in a page or as an external tool within a Module. If you still want students to see some sort of grade for self-assessment purposes, you can assign each bulb interaction a point within the PlayPosit interface. While these interactions will display point values within PlayPosit, the points earned by completing interactions will not push back to Canvas and the PlayPosit activity will not be reflected in the Canvas Gradebook. More information on how to create PlayPosit activities that are graded or ungraded in Canvas can be found in the UWGB IT Knowledgebase, UKnowIt.

How can PlayPosit help save instructors time?

PlayPosit isn’t just a resource that will benefit your students and their learning experience within the classroom. It also has many benefits for instructors. There are several features of this tool that can be time savers for you as an instructor! Not only is building a PlayPosit bulb a quick way to enhance your existing course videos, but PlayPosit automatically saves interactions you make for your bulbs within a personal interaction library. PlayPosit also allows you to create templates for individual interactions or sets of interactions. You can then access these individual interactions, located under My Interactions within the PlayPosit interface, or your saved templates for use in future bulbs to make the bulb creation process even faster! For more information on how to access and use these timesaving PlayPosit features, see this PlayPosit resource. Remember, since UWGB possesses a license for this tool, you as an instructor have access to all of these features.  

Beyond saving the interactions and templates you personally create, PlayPosit also allows you to co-edit bulbs with colleagues using the collaborations feature, or to share out PlayPosit bulbs to fellow instructors by using the folders feature. These sharing features can be used together or separately depending on if you wish to include your colleagues as editors, or to simply provide them with a copy of one of your bulbs. For directions on how to share and copy bulbs, please review this PlayPosit resource. Not only can you share individual bulbs within PlayPosit, but you can also collaborate and share interaction templates with your colleagues! For more information on how to collaborate with other instructors, please see this resource provided by PlayPosit.

Questions?

These are only a few of the features PlayPosit offers instructors and students. If you have any questions about PlayPosit, please feel free to reach out to the UWGB Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning through email (catl@uwgb.edu) or for troubleshooting you can contact PlayPosit customer support through their website (PlayPosit Knowledge) by clicking on “Contact” in the upper right corner. For a more detailed discussion of PlayPosit use cases and how you can harness the tool in your own Canvas course, you can schedule a consultation with CATL here. 

Helpful Terms and Hints

Bulb – The term used to refer to a PlayPosit interactive video.

Interaction – The term for the different questions, images, audio, or other media resources which can be embedded into a PlayPosit bulb. There is no limit to how many can be included within a bulb.

PlayPosit Designer – This is the interface used to create PlayPosit bulbs, insert your video source, embed interactions, and select bulb settings.

PlayPosit 3.0 Designer – This refers to the current version of PlayPosit software being used.

Learner Made Content – This refers to PlayPosit bulbs and interactions created by learners and submitted for assessment to instructors.

If you do not wish to work in the PlayPosit interface within Canvas and prefer a larger screen to build and edit your videos, you can open your PlayPosit account in any browser. In order to do so however, you must have already opened PlayPosit within your UWGB Canvas account. If you have not yet accessed PlayPosit at UWGB, follow the instructions below. 

How to log into PlayPosit through your UWGB Canvas Account: 

  • First, log into your UWGB Canvas account in one tab of a browser of your choice. 
  • Navigate to the Assignments section if you wish to build a graded PlayPosit activity or to the Pages section for an ungraded PlayPosit activity. 
  • For a Page, create a New Page by clicking on + Page and then click the down arrow to the left of the plug-in icon in the Rich Content Toolbar. The plug-in icon looks like a two-prong plug with a cord. Then click on View All and select PlayPosit. This will open a window with the words Set Link in the top right corner. Click on the words Enter PlayPosit in the middle of the window or Set Link in green on the right side of the window. You should now be in PlayPosit, skip to the last step in these instructions to open PlayPosit in a browser. 
  • For an Assignment, create a New Assignment by clicking on + Assignment, then under Submission Type, select External Tool. Next, click on Find under "Find an External Tool URL" and scroll down then select PlayPosit. A window with the words Link Resource form External Tool will open, click on either Enter PlayPosit or Set Link in green. You should now be in PlayPosit, skip to the last step in these instructions to open PlayPosit in a browser. 
  • Now, in a separate tab in the same browser where you logged into Canvas, open PlayPosit Knowledge. Click on the PlayPosit logo in the upper right portion of the screen. The PlayPosit logo is the image of the dog. This will open your PlayPosit account provided by UWGB. Here you can build, share, and collaborate on bulbs using the larger screen view provided by the browser. To set the link to your desired bulb for a graded Assignment in Canvas or in a Canvas Page however, you should follow the instructions above to open PlayPosit in Canvas then select your bulb. 

Yes, in PlayPosit you can include several video segments into a single bulb. Do this in the Video Segments screen when creating a new bulb. If you would like to change the order of the video segments within your bulb, you can toggle on the Enable drag and drop recording option at the top of the Video Segments screen. Move videos into the order in which you would like them to be seen. Once you are finished, toggle off the Enable drag and drop recording.

Note: For new PlayPosit playlists, you should reorder your video segments before you add interactions. Interactions in a playlist will not move with the video when it is reordered. 

Yes, with the UWGB institutional license PlayPosit will automatically pull in caption files that are already associated with your videos (such as YouTube videos with captions or Kaltura videos. You can also upload caption files directly to PlayPosit such as .vtt and .srt files. 

To check your video for captions, navigate to the My Bulbs page in PlayPosit and follow the steps below. 

  • In the far right of the screen under Actions, click on the three vertical dots to the right of the video you wish to check and then from the dropdown menu select Edit. 

  • Click on the Video Segments tab in the PlayPosit Designer and click on the edit icon (it looks like a gray pencil) for the video you wish to caption. The edit icon is in the upper right corner of the video segment.  

  • Select Edit Video Segment from the options presented. Then click on the Captions tab in the Edit Video Segment screen. 

  • In this screen, you can now have PlayPosit search for available captions, or you can upload your caption file.  
  • To search for captions, click on the View Available YouTube Captions, then select from the available options PlayPosit was able to fetch by checking the box to the right of the desired language choice. Once your choices are finalized, select Download in the bottom right corner to save your choices.