Embed Questions in a Video

SmartSpot offers teachers the ability to create quizzes in four different question formats (multiple choice, true/false, fill in the blank, and open text questions), and insert those questions throughout or at the end of videos. As students view the video, the questions will appear at each designated place, where they must answer the question before continuing with the video. These assessments are easy to share with your students, whether via Google Classrooms or the Group feature, and are auto-graded with several reporting options.

 

Uploading Media

Before creating the questions for your video, you will first need to ensure that your media is already located in MyVRSpot. If the video you would like to use is already located in your account, you may proceed to the next step on “Creating Your Embedded Questions.” If not, follow the instructions below to upload your video.

  • Log into MyVRSpot from the LPS Portal.
  • Click Upload in the menu toward the top of the page.
  • You have four options for uploading your media content: to drag-and-drop a file from your computer, to paste a link from YouTube or Vimeo, to paste a link from another hosting website, or to upload content from your Google Drive account. Select the option that best fits your needs.
  • You will be prompted to define the attributes for this media. You may choose to edit the name, add a description, change the thumbnail, determine the video’s playback options, upload closed captioning text, or add tags. Most importantly, you will need to set the Media Permissions for the video. The default setting here is Private, so if you would like students to have access to it, you will need to change the permissions to either Public or Group Only.
    • For the Group Only setting to be successful, you will also need to add the media to a particular group, the controls for which are just a few lines down from Media Permissions. Under Add to Groups, you may select from a list of pre existing groups. If you have not already defined a group for your students to join and would like to, you will need to follow a separate set of instructions, found here.
  • After defining the permissions for your video, select Update at the bottom of the page. Your uploaded video should now appear on your Home screen.

Creating Your Embedded Questions

Once your video is available in MyVRSpot, you can begin creating your embedded questions through the SmartSpot feature.

  • From your MyVRSpot homepage, click the SmartSpot menu item toward the top of the page, then Create Quiz. Note that even though MyVRSpot uses the term “quiz” to describe this feature, you may use it without engaging the assessment component of it. 
  • Select the media that you would like to embed questions in, create a title, and write a description (optional). There are several additional options that are important to consider: can the students take the quiz multiple times, or just once? Can they view the correct answers after completing the quiz? And should they be able to resume a quiz if it was not completed? 
  • Once you have established the parameters for the quiz, identify a start and end date for the quiz. Quizzes without a start and end date will begin immediately and will not expire. With these attributes now defined, select Create Quiz.
  • To populate your quiz with questions, you can either add new questions or import existing ones. A question has four types that you can choose from: 
    • Fill in the blank: the response a student enters must be an exact text match to what you have identified as the correct answer, and the answers are case insensitive. You may need to provide multiple versions of the correct answer to account for the different ways that students might respond. There is no maximum to the number of correct answers, so include as many as you deem necessary. As an example, if a question asks who the 16th President of the United States is, you would want to provide both Lincoln and Abraham Lincoln as a correct answer. Since the answers are case insensitive LINCOLN or lincoln would count as being correct. Results are automatically graded. 
    • Multiple choice: with this type, you will need to include at least two possible answer choices and only one answer can be correct. For more choices, merely select Add Answer. Five answer choices is the maximum. Results are automatically graded.
    • True/False: provide the statement and then define whether that statement is true or false. Results are automatically graded.
    • Open answer: for this type, results are not automatically graded. You may view students’ responses to your question from the Quiz Report. 
  • For both new and existing questions, it is important to identify when the questions appear in the video’s progression: at a particular point, or after it has ended. To display the question at a particular spot, identify the point (in seconds) when the video will stop and the question will appear. You can also drag the playhead of the video to that point and select Use Current Playhead Time. Once you have completed these steps, add the question to the quiz (for a new question, click the button that reads Save Questions and Add to Quiz, and for an existing question, select the button Add Question).

When you finish adding questions, click Publish Quiz in the upper-right-hand corner to activate the embedded questions.

Sharing Your Video

For students to access the media and respond to the questions you created, you will need to share the video with them. MyVRSpot generates a unique URL for sharing content within MyVRSpot, and another URL for sharing outside of MyVRSpot. Follow the directions below to locate both of these links so that students can access the content.

  • From your MyVRSpot homepage, find and click on the video that you would like to share with students. 
  • You will be directed to a page with a large preview of that video, some descriptive information on the video, and a field where discussion may take place. Just below the preview of the video, you will see options to “Share this video.” Select the Link/Embed option.
  • In the window that pops-up, you will find two links: a link to share your video inside MyVRSpot (at the top), and below that, a different link to share the video outside MyVRSpot. If you are expecting students to first login to MyVRSpot in order to see and interact with the content, you will want to copy the first link. If you are sending the link to students via email, pasting it into a Google Doc, or making it available in Google Classroom, you will want to copy the second link.
  • The third option, also available in the Link/Embed pop-up window is to embed your media. If you would like the media to appear outside MyVRSpot and within an existing page, you will need to define the embed size and copy the embed code that the system generates, and paste it into the appropriate destination.

Alternative Solutions

There are tools on the market that have this feature, but they require student access to YouTube, or they do not meet our privacy policy requirements. Currently, SmartSpot is our only option for this functionality.

This information is part of a larger series on creating & delivering multimedia based content with LPS tools. The entire list of resources can be found here.