Creating and Using Video Assignments

LaunchPad Solo for Literature includes 137 great videos from more than 20 influential authors discussing their work and their writing process, but students can do more than just watch them. Using the LaunchPad video annotating tools, you can annotate these videos, or ask your students to share their thoughts directly on the content.

By adding video assignments in LaunchPad, you can create assignments that allow students to comment on, upload, and/or score (using a rubric) videos that you or they upload. You can also add videos from our expansive Video Central library. The information below covers some basic assignment suggestions and tips for working with video. For more information about the Video Assignments feature, see Create a Video Assignment.

Embed a video from YouTube or from another source. In your instructions, provide discussion questions. Require students to add 2-3 comments on the video that respond to the prompt. You may grade this assignment with a rubric.

Some projects are complicated because they involve a lot of choice and many stages. Record yourself explaining the project, and upload the video to the Video Assignment tool. Require students to comment by asking a question or by proposing a topic.

Although students often study plays as written texts, it can be fun and informative to have them act out scenes for their classmates. Assign small groups of students to record themselves acting out their favorite scene from a play and upload the video for the class to see. You can add your feedback and comments directly on the video.

Sound is important in poetry, and how a poem is read can be as important to understanding as the words themselves. Invite students to record themselves–either using video or audio only–and share the results with the class. Consider giving each student a ‘mood’ for their reading, so that the class can hear how different tones and interpretations can change the impact of the poem. You might choose to grade this assignment with a simple pass/fail rubric.

If you require students to compose videos, they may upload their projects for grading using this tool. Rubric tools are available.

Please check the user guide for the most complete instructions.

To effectively use this tool, the following specifications are required:

• supported file types: avi, flv, mov, mpeg, mpg, mp4, m4v, qt, wmv, 3gp
• *Note: For now, we only support YouTube embeds. Other embeds will be available in the future.
• supported file size: up to 600 MB

Before uploading, instructors and students should compress video files for these settings:

• File format: .mov or .mp4
• Codec: H.264
• Resolution: 640 x 360
• Bitrate: (smaller is better – the drop-down should have choices)