How to submit videos on Blackboard

Sometimes you have to record a video of yourself for an assignment, but then you have to submit a link to the video rather than the video itself. So, how do you do that?

There are two main ways to do this:

1. Upload the video to the cloud (such as Google Drive) and then share it.

2. Upload the video to a video sharing site (such as YouTube) and then share it.

Method 1: Uploading to the cloud:

Step 1 - Record the video. You can do this with your phone, webcam, etc. It doesn't really matter. The main thing is that your video needs to be in a common format, such as mp4. If your device has recorded your video in a non-standard format you may need to convert it. To do so, just locate a free online video conversion site.

Step 2 - Upload your video. To do this, simply navigate to your NSU Google Drive. You can do this by opening a web browser and going to drive.google.com and logging in with your GreenMail username and password. Then click on the video file and drag it to your drive. It may take a little while for the video to upload.

Step 3 - Share. Once your video has uploaded, simply right-click on it and choose "Share".

Next, click on "Get shareable link".

Finally, click on "Copy link" and then "Done".

Step 4 - Submit. Now that you have the link to your video, go to the assignment and paste the link you just copied. (There are prettier ways to do this, but this is the simplest way.)

Step 5 - Test! This is the most important step! Copy your link from your entry and paste it in a new browser and see if it works. If it doesn't work for you, it won't work for us.

Method 2: Uploading to YouTube:

Step 1 - Record the video. You can do this with your phone, webcam, etc. It doesn't really matter.

Step 2 - Upload your video to YouTube. To do this, simply log in to YouTube.com (you can use your GreenMail account for this). You may need to set up your account the first time, just follow the steps on the website. Once your account is ready, go to YouTube.com and click on the little camera with a plus sign in it.
 

Next, click on "Upload Video".

Then, click on your video file, and drag and drop it in the indicated area.

Finally, click on "Publish".

Step 3 - Embed the video on Blackboard. First, wait until it finishes publishing your video on YouTube, then click on "Embed"

Copy the link.

Go to your Group Conversation Discussion Board. Go to the appropriate thread and click "Reply".

Click on the "HTML" button.

Paste the embed info you copied, and click "Update".

Finally, click "Submit"!

Step 5 - Test! This is the most important step! Make sure to check your video to make sure it is working properly! If it doesn't work for you, it won't work for us! Also, be sure that the quality is good enough that we can easily understand what you are saying.

If you have any questions or concerns, please let me know!