How to Record and Share a Video in Canvas
Below you will find instructions for uploading and recording videos into Studio, which is Canvas' built in video recorder. Once you have saved a video, it will appear in your Studio library and you can share it by embedding it into Canvas pages, assignments, discussions, announcements — in short wherever the Canvas Rich Text Editor appears.
| STUDIO LIBRARY AND UPLOADING |
To get into your Studio Library--the space that houses all of your Studio videos--click on the Studio icon in the global navigation (far left, black) to open. There you will see buttons to Record or Add+. Let's start with Add+.
If you click Add+, you can upload any videos you may have recorded in other places, such as Zoom. You can also enter a URL for a YouTube video.
| RECORDING IN STUDIO |
Next let's click Record. Here there are two options, Screen Capture and Webcam Capture. We will start with Webcam Capture. (Screen Capture instructions are on the following page.)
This will likely bring up a window asking if seattleu.instructure.com (Canvas) can access your camera. Choose Allow.
Now you are ready to record. When you click Start Recording, you will have a 3 second countdown.
Once you have finished recording you can give your video a Title before clicking Save.
Once you have saved the video, it will appear in your library as processing. If it is a long video, this could take a while. Note: best practice for video length is 5 - 7 minutes. To cover a topic more fully, make several videos. These can all be added to a page and serve as "chapters".
| CHANGING THE THUMBNAIL |
Once the video has processed it will appear in your library with a random thumbnail the system has chosen. Frequently, this is the worst possible selection imaginable, but you have the option to upload an alternative thumbnail image.
To replace the thumbnail, click on the 3 dots and choose Replace Thumbnail, which will allow you to browse for another image—say an image you have created from a PowerPoint slide.
Once the thumbnail has been selected from your files, it will now appear in your Studio Library (and on your Canvas pages) as such.
| REQUESTING CAPTIONS |
When you click on the file on the library page, it will open. Here you can request machine captions, which are pretty good. However, the captions may take a while to show up.
| EMBEDDING YOUR VIDEO |
Now you are ready to embed your video in a Canvas page. Create or navigate to a page where you want your video and click on the Edit button to open up the Rich Text Editor. Click on the Studio icon.
This will open up the Studio Library where you can select your video:
Before embedding on the page, the Studio Embed Options window will open. The default settings allow for a discussion to surround the video, but in most cases you will probably want only the video. Un-click Allow Comments and then click Embed. (See Time-Stamped Video Discussions for situations where you might want discussion).
Now your video will appear on the page and you can click Save.
| THE RESULT |