Problem – I want to embed a bunch of videos into my Moodle from various video providers and have them play one after another in a sidebar on Moodle. How can I accomplish that?

Solution: Two possible solutions, including the YouTube Video Playlist Block and Embedr.com.

While some have suggested the YouTube block is a great solution, I have found it to be lacking in my K-12 setting. Here’s why: YouTube videos are blocked. While we can all spend time arguing about how it should be unblocked, circumventing the blocks, or permitted just for one server (as one colleague suggested to me), the fact is that it’s blocked in my K-12 school district. As such, I have to find a workaround until learning conversations yield a different result.

ABOUT YOUTUBE VIDEO PLAYLIST BLOCK
Before we jump into an alternate solution, let’s go over why the YouTube Video Playlist block is such a nice solution, even if it doesn’t work for my situation and no one is likely to modify a solution soon (read the post where I tried to encourage folks).

Here’s what success looks like, although be aware that only the first video in the queue is shown below, others will start playing when this one is done…

Modifying the videos available is pretty easy…

All in all, a pretty nice solution. But, could there be a better one, especially one that WILL WORK with other video service providers aside from YouTube.com?

A BETTER SOLUTION – EMBEDR.COM

One possible workaround is the use of Embedr, a free service that allows you to create video playlists by simply pasting in the view video code for a variety of services, including Atom Films, Blip.TV, Bragster, College Humor, Dailymotion, DivShare, Metacafe, TeacherTube, MySpace Video, Veoh, Vimeo, YouTube.

Some other video services I’d like to see appear include Edublogs.tv, SchoolTube.com, Godtube.com, and uStream.tv. Imagine the possibilities of embedding these! As a result of the K-12 Community’s need for having access to these, I emailed Embedr and asked them the status of adding these other video services; below is their prompt and positive (!) response:

We are currently working on making all of those sites compatible. It may be a couple weeks before we have it fully working, and we will email you once it is complete.
Source: Email from Embedr.com support on 03/09/2009

That’s customer service from a free service!! Thanks Embedr!

As to using Embedr, it’s pretty straightforward. You go to the site, and get to work right away (without even creating a login or account if you so choose). What I like about this service is that not only can I start copying-n-pasting video URLs, but that I can easily add/remove them.

It’s incredibly easy to create your playlist, as shown in the image below:

In this case, I’m making a K-12 Moodle Use video playlist that I can embed on the front page of our Professional Learning Center. Once you’ve created your playlist, you can create a preview to see what it looks like…

Below, you can see the two solutions–YouTube Video Playlist block and the Embedr solution– deployed on an actual Moodle…

What’s neat is that I can also choose to embed the Embedr generated code in this blog entry so you can actually see what this looks like.

Now, the video play window appears quite big, so I’ve made some minor modifications to help it fit better in the Moodle sidebar…those modifications basically involved adjusting the size of the windows from 425 to 225, and 520 to 320.

Here’s the result of those simple modifications…notice that underneath the main video, you can see a slidebar for selecting different videos available in the playlist, a nice feature that gives the user control of what they’re seeing.

Here’s what the code looks like (right click image to view full-size):

Items in yellow are the ones I modified in the HTML block I used to add the code to the Moodle sidebar.

As a result of this, I’ll be switching to Embedr.com for deploying my video playlist solutions. For example, I’m imagining uploading a series of great student projects, interviews with teachers and deploying them on the front page of our Professional Learning Center, as well as other places. It’s also easy to create custom video playlists for use within a course with having to worry about managing videos and enabling me to draw upon the wealth of learning out there.

Imagine doing this with pre-recorded slideshows and presentations, too. Lots of applications.

And, check out the Moodle Tip Roundup, Moodle Habitudes, and Moodle Mambo!

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Everything posted on Miguel Guhlin’s blogs/wikis are his personal opinion and do not necessarily represent the views of his employer(s) or its clients. Read Full Disclosure