How to Add Multimedia Learning Resources to Edulastic Assignments

In today’s dynamic digital world, keeping students engaged through technology is a great way to foster learning. Multimedia content — such as images, videos, audio, and simulations — can elevate your assignments and engage your students. Utilizing multimedia learning resources in your lessons can enhance your assignments with engaging and exciting content. 

From videos and audio to simulations and experiments multimedia can help keep your students interested in the content and excited to learn. Incorporating multimedia learning resources into your Edulastic lessons can help your students gain a deeper understanding of the material. Research has shown that multimedia learning resources fosters higher information retention and faster learning. Multimedia content activates and stimulates different parts of the brain, helping students find a deeper level of engagement in the classroom.  Providing visual, audial, and interactive elements to online instruction can also cater to different students’ learning styles, which ensures that all students feel supported in their learning endeavors.

Edulastic makes adding cutting-edge multimedia content to your lessons and assessments easier than ever so you can harness the benefits of digital learning and enhance your students’ educational experience! The possibilities with multimedia content are endless; you can embed different types of multimedia learning resources into your question stems and answers. Read on for details on how to add images, videos, audio clips, PhET simulations, presentations, with some tech tips from fellow educators on how they use multimedia learning resources on Edulastic.

Add an Image

Have you ever heard the saying, “a picture is worth a thousand words?” There are many situations where images can illustrate a concept in a question, help convey ideas to English language learners,  or improve learning for students who tend to be visual learners. While adding images is a particularly great tool for illustrating a question or idea for younger students, it’s a great feature for teachers of any grade or subject. Erin Merill, a social studies teacher from Woodbridge, VA, likes to use images in her answer choices to help boost her students’ thought processes. 

Embedding images on Edulastic, such as a graph, map, or any other picture is quick and easy! Here’s how it’s done: First, save your chosen image, and open the question stem or answer on Edulastic. Click into the text editor, and locate the Insert Image button. From there, you can either drag and drop the image into the upload box, or click upload and chose your image 

Once your image has been uploaded, you can edit the alignment, the style of the image’s border, and the size. Additionally, you can add a caption and insert a link to go with the image. 

If you want to remove or replace your image, simply click on the picture and click the replace or the remove buttons. This option is an excellent way to spice up your questions and answers for teachers of any subject.

Add a Video

Take your assessments and lessons to the next level and embed a video! Like images, videos are a great way to capture student attention. You can use Edulastic’s video feature to embed pre-made video content from 3rd party sites like YouTube or Khan Academy, or to embed a video of yourself giving instructions or lesson content. Edulastic makes it simple to embed any type of video content, from homemade presentations to tutorials to movie clips. 
Embedding videos is just as straightforward as  embedding images. Once your question is open and in edit mode, click into the stem or answer that you would like to embed your video into. Click the Insert Video button, which will bring up 3 options for embedding a video into your question.

Add Audio

To use this method, first upload your audio clip onto SoundCloud. Once your audio file is uploaded, click the Share button and the Embed tab. Copy the code listed under Code & Preview and paste into the Insert Video option on Edulastic. Your code should begin with the phrase <iframe. Scroll through your code until you find the phrase </iframe>, which should be located somewhere in the middle of your code text. Once you have located this snippet of code, select all of the code after </iframe> and delete it. Please note that if you try to embed the audio clip without deleting the excess code after the phrase </iframe>, Edulastic will not recognize the format and your audio will not embed. 

Don’t want to use SoundCloud? Any similar third party file host should work! Whatever route you choose, you’ll find that embedding audio into your Edulastic assignments is an excellent way to take advantage of your multimedia opportunities and engage students of varying learning styles.

Embedding Presentations and Slides

Whether you’re hoping to use slides to teach in the classroom, provide additional instruction in assessments, or more, Edulastic makes embedding presentations into your assignments simple! The process for embedding slides is similar to the steps outlined above in the video, audio, and simulation sections. 

For Google Slides and Powerpoint, first open your presentation and select Publish to Web. From there, select Embed and copy the link. On Edulastic, select the question you would like to embed your presentation in, click the Insert Video button, and paste the code in. 

For Prezi, open your Prezi Design Dashboard and find the presentation you would like to embed. Click the three dots in the lower right corner of the presentation and select View. Scroll down to the embed icon and copy the embed code, then paste into the Insert Video option in Edulastic.
If you love using Pear Deck in your classroom, we have good news for you! You can also embed Pear Deck slide decks into Edulastic questions following the same process above. Simply connect your Pear Deck account to your Google Drive, create your interactive slide deck on Google Slides, and use the embed code to insert your presentation into your Edulastic question. This integration is an excellent option for teachers who hope to use Edulastic and Pear Deck to teach lessons, both at home and in the classroom!

Including multimedia learning resources in online learning materials can help you connect with your students and present your lesson material in a creative and engaging way. You can bring learning, labs, and assessments to life, and make the experience for your students a little more exciting. Looking for multimedia inspiration? Check out these assessments that cleverly feature multimedia elements: Irony in Poetry by Dr. Kara Pickens and Forces and Motion PhET Simulation by Steve DeRoads. Multimedia is a great tool for educators of all grades and subjects (math, science, ELA, social studies, and beyond!) to utilize in their classrooms.

Get Inspired!