It’s common sense that courses can run more smoothly when they’re not packed with heavy content, but is there a way to retain all of your rich media—like videos—without straining the course? As it turns out, you can offload all of your videos onto YouTube and insert the embed codes into your courses. What this essentially does is put the weight and strain of your videos in YouTube’s very capable hands. They take care of the video hosting and processing; the course will merely be reflecting that hosted content, which in turn will drastically reduce the file size of your course.
The following is a simple method for hosting your video content on YouTube and embedding it into your training.
What you will need:
- A Google Account
- A video file to upload (a list of YouTube’s supported video formats can be found here)
- A stable Internet connection
In order to upload a video to YouTube, you will need to create a Google Account if you don’t already have one. To do this, visit this link and fill out the form.
Then, go to www.youtube.com and log into your Google Account using the Sign in button in the upper right-hand corner (Note: if you’ve just created a Google Account and are visiting this page, you may already be signed into your account, in which case you can skip this step):
After entering your credentials, you should be redirected back to the main page (same as the one pictured above). Next, click the Upload button:
On this screen, drag and drop the video you want to upload onto the indicated field:
This will initiate the uploading process:
Note that you can also change the video’s privacy settings on this screen. If you don’t want the video to be public, you should select “Unlisted” so that only people with the video link can view it. Selecting “Private” may seem like the best option, but doing this will mean that you have to grant permission to each person who wants to view the video, so it can end up being an onerous process and is thus not recommended:
Once the video has finished uploading, there will be a link to where you can find the video on YouTube:
Click this link to be taken to your video. Next, click the “Share” tab below the video:
Now click the Embed tab that appears:
You will probably want to uncheck the “Show suggested videos when the video finishes” box. This option is unnecessary and could potentially distract the audience from the course:
Here, you can also adjust the video size to preset dimensions or select your own custom size:
After making all of your desired changes, you are now ready to copy the embed code and paste it into your course:
The result should be a neatly embedded YouTube video.
Please note that in order for the embed code to be parsed properly in Lectora, you will need to type http: after src=”. This fix may also apply to other e-Learning tools that are unable to render the video.