This tutorial will demonstrate how to access your PSU Box account, and how to embed Box content directly into ANGEL for your students to view. It will also show you how to give your students the option of uploading content to Box from within ANGEL.

Logging in to Box

To start, go to box.psu.edu to access your Box account.

Click the blue Login button, and a page will appear asking if you are part of Penn State. Select Continue.

You will then be taken to the familiar Penn State WebAccess screen. Input your PSU user ID and password, then click Log In.

You will now be inside your Box account, that will look something like this:

Creating a Folder and Uploading a Video File in Box

Now that you are in your Box account, click on the New button and select New Folder from the drop-down window.

A window will pop up with a few options. Give your folder a Name and click the circle next to ‘Keep Private for Now.’ Then click Okay.

You will now see your newly created folder listed in your Box account.

Click on your folder to enter it and see its contents. Since there is nothing in the folder yet, you will now need to upload your file. You can drag and drop your file from anywhere on your computer into the large grey box with the cloud inside of it, and it will automatically upload the file for you.

Alternatively, you can click anywhere inside this large grey box to bring up a file browser. From there, simply locate the file you wish to upload and click Open.

Your video file will now be inside of your course folder.

Finding the Video Embed Code

With your new folder created and video uploaded, the next step is to locate the code that will allow you to integrate the video into ANGEL for your students to view.

In Box, go into your course folder and find the video that you just uploaded. To the far right of the video name you will see a button that says ‘Share’ and then a small box with a downward-pointing arrow. Click this small box and it will give you a drop-down menu with more options.

In this menu, hover your cursor over Share and select Get Link from the side menu that appears.

In the pop up window that appears, click on the Embed button.

In this Embed section, there are a couple of settings that need to be changed. First, click where it says Collaborators Only Access. This is where you can change who is able to access your content.

In this new drop-down window, select Your Company, which allow only Penn State users to access your content.

Once you select it, you will be automatically taken back to this screen:

Just like last time, click on Embed again.

Once you are back in the Embed section, click on Size and change the size from Medium to Large in order to make the video larger and easier to see.

Now, at the bottom of the window, you will see some lines of words and numbers. This is known as the Embed Code that will allow you to integrate, or ‘embed,’ your video into ANGEL. Click the Copy to Clipboard button, which will automatically copy that code for you.

You can now click the Close button to exit the window. You are ready to head over to ANGEL.

Embedding Your Video into ANGEL

Now that you have your video Embed Code, open another tab or window in your internet browser, while keeping your Box page open, and log in to ANGEL like you normally would.

Under the My Courses section, find the appropriate course and click on it.

On this screen click on the Add Content button.

Next, create a new page by clicking on Page.

On this screen, you can title your page whatever you like.

Next, click on the Source button in the toolbar, located on the second row of icons all the way to the right. Once you click the button, all of the other icons will be greyed out.

In the text box below the toolbar, right click with your mouse and select Paste. The Embed Code that you copied from Box will then appear in the text box.

Now click the Save button right below, and you will be taken back to the Lessons section of ANGEL.

From the list, click on the page that you just created. You will see a Box window right inside your page. Since you are already logged into Box, it will ask you to perform an additional security measure. Simply drag the cloud icon into its place.

You can now watch your video directly from ANGEL.

Students should also be able to view this video in their individual ANGEL pages.

Finding the Box Upload ‘Widget’ Embed Code

The next step is to enable your students to upload their response videos directly from ANGEL.

This is done through a small, integrated application window, otherwise known as a widget. Just like the video, we need to find the Embed Code for this widget.

Since you kept your Box account open in your browser, keep your ANGEL page open, return to your Box page, and find your course folder again. If you still are inside of your folder, click on All Files to be taken back out of it.

Find your appropriate course folder again. Far to the right of the folder name you will see a button that says ‘Share’ and then a small box with a downward-pointing arrow. Click this small box and it will give you a drop-down menu with more options.

From this menu, hover your cursor over Upload Options and select Embed Upload Widget from the side menu that appears.

In the popup window, you will again see some lines of words and numbers at the bottom. This the Upload Widget Embed Code that will allow you embed your Box upload widget into ANGEL. Click the Copy to Clipboard button, which will automatically copy that code for you.

Now click the grey ‘X’ in the top right corner of the window to exit out of it.

You are now ready to head back over to ANGEL.

Embedding the Box Upload Widget into ANGEL

Since you left your ANGEL page open in your browser, return to that tab or window. In your course page, click on Settings right above your newly embedded video.

You will be now be back at the editing screen that you saw before, and will have to add this new Upload Widget Embed Code to the other video Embed Code you already added.

So, click on the Source button again in the toolbar, located on the second row of icons all the way to the right. Once you click the button, all of the other icons will be greyed out.

In the text box below the toolbar, you will see the video Embed Code that you already entered. Click to the right of the very last character or letter in the code to move your typing cursor to the very end of code. Now, hit Enter on your keyboard twice to space down two lines. Next, right click with your mouse and select Paste. The Upload Widget Embed Code that you copied from Box will then appear in the text box directly below the first code.

Now click the Save button right below, and you will be taken back to the lesson page.

You will now see your Upload Widget right underneath your video.

This tutorial will demonstrate how to access your PSU Box account, and how to embed Box content directly into ANGEL for your students to view. It will also show you how to give your students the option of uploading content to Box from within ANGEL.

Logging in to Box

To start, go to box.psu.edu to access your Box account.

Click the blue Login button, and a page will appear asking if you are part of Penn State. Select Continue.

You will then be taken to the familiar Penn State WebAccess screen. Input your PSU user ID and password, then click Log In.

You will now be inside your Box account, that will look something like this:

Creating a Folder in Box

Now that you are in your Box account, click on the New button and select New Folder from the drop-down window.

A window will pop up with a few options. Give your folder a Name and click the circle next to ‘Keep Private for Now.’ Then click Okay.

You will now see your newly created folder listed in your Box account.

Finding the Box ‘Widget’ Embed Code

With your new folder created, the next step is to locate the code that will allow you to integrate the Box application into a page within ANGEL. This small, integrated application window, otherwise known as a widget, will enable your students to upload and view content from their individual ANGEL pages.

There are two widgets that you can use, depending on your needs for your course. The first will allow students to upload AND view the contents within your Box course folder. The second will allow students to ONLY upload to the Box folder, and they will not be able to view any of the content. The second method is good if you want to maintain privacy between your students’ and their work.

Method 1: Upload and View

In Box, find your folder. Far to the right of the folder name you will see a button that says ‘Share’ and then a small box with a downward-pointing arrow. Click this small box and it will give you a drop-down menu with more options.

In this menu, hover your cursor over Share and then select Embed into Your Site from the side menu that appears.

A window will appear that looks like this:

Some of these settings need to be changed. To start, click where it says Collaborators Only Access. This is where you can change who is able to access your folder.

From this drop-down menu, select Your Company, which will allow only Penn State users to access your course folder. The drop-down menu will close after you select it.

Next, we need to change the Size from Medium to Large. This will make the widget easier to view.

At the bottom of the window, you will see some lines of words and numbers. This is known as the Embed Code that will allow you to integrate, or ‘embed,’ your Box folder into ANGEL or any other website. Click the Copy to Clipboard button, which will automatically copy that code for you.

You can now click the Close button to exit the window. You are now ready to head over to ANGEL.

Method 2: Upload Only

If you want your students to only be able to upload to the Box folder, another Embed Code is available for an upload only widget. If you followed Method 1, please skip this section and scroll down to Embedding Box Content into ANGEL.

In Box, find your folder. Far to the right of the folder name you will see a button that says ‘Share’ and then a small box with a downward-pointing arrow. Click this small box and it will give you a drop-down menu with more options.

From this menu, hover your cursor over Upload Options and select Embed Upload Widget from the side menu that appears.

In the popup window, you will see some lines of words and numbers at the bottom. This is known as the Embed Code that will allow you to integrate, or ‘embed,’ your Box folder into ANGEL or any other website. Click the Copy to Clipboard button, which will automatically copy that code for you.

Now click the grey ‘X’ in the top right corner of the window to exit out of it.

You are now ready to head over to ANGEL.

Embedding Box Content into ANGEL

Now that you have your Embed Code, open another tab or window in your internet browser and log in to ANGEL like you normally would.

Under the My Courses section, find the appropriate course and click on it.

On this screen click on the Add Content button.

Next, create a new page by clicking on Page.

On this screen, you can title your page whatever you like.

Next, click on the Source button in the toolbar, located on the second row of icons all the way to the right. Once you click the button, all of the other icons will be greyed out.

In the text box below the toolbar, right click with your mouse and select Paste. The Embed Code that you copied from Box will then appear in the text box.

Now click the Save button right below, and you will be taken back to the Lessons section of ANGEL.

From the list, click on the page that you just created. You should now see your Box widget right in the page.

If you followed Method 1: Upload and View above, your page should look something like this:

If you followed Method 2: Upload Only above, your page should look something like this:

When a student uploads a file, you will be directly notified by Box.

This tutorial will show you how to download content from iTunesU to your local computer.

Go to http://itunes.psu.edu .

Click on the Podcasting button at the bottom of the page.

Click on Log in to Private iTunes U.

Log in with your Penn State user id and password.

Select Available Courses.

Scroll down to your course and click on it to open.

Click on the Get button to download the file to your machine.

The downloaded files will be in Music>iTunes>iTunes Media>iTunes U>coursename

This tutorial will demonstrate how to access ANGEL, watch language course materials and record a response movie that is uploaded back to the ANGEL course space. These instructions are for use on Media Commons iMacs found in all Penn State Media Commons locations.

Access ANGEL by visiting http://cms.psu.edu

Login to WebAccess with your Penn State user ID and password.

Click on your course in the My Courses list in the top left of the ANGEL Course Management system and then click on the lesson you are working on.

You should see the video on the lesson page.  If you are not logged in to box.psu.edu, you can click on Secure Log In and enter your PSU ID and password.

Once you are logged in to box.psu.edu drag the cloud icon to view the video.

You will be able to watch and listen to course materials by clicking on the play button in the bottom left of the video window.

To record your response via the camera that is built in to the iMac, you will need to launch the QuickTime Player application and select New Movie Recording from the File menu.

Press the red Record button in the lower center of the QuickTime Movie Recording window. Be careful to only click once. A second click will stop the recording.

To save your recording after pressing the red button to stop the recording, select the File Menu>Export….

and save this file to the Desktop.  Double clicking on this file will open it for viewing.  You may also want to rename the file with your name and lesson number for identification by single clicking on the file and pressing the Return key on the keyboard to enter edit mode.

Upload your movie back into the ANGEL course space by clicking on Browse in the File Upload area of the Submit file window.

Navigate to the file you wish to upload and add your email address in the Your e-mail field and click Upload.

Wait until it finishes uploading and you see the Success message before you log out of ANGEL.

click to enlarge

Welcome to Summer!  Now that the Spring 2014 semester has wrapped up, Media Commons would like to share our summary of the term that was.  In the most recent semester, our busiest Spring to date, the consultants worked with 91 projects – a 7% increase over Spring 2013 – and helped 6,981 people in the classroom, through appointments and via the hotline.

Liberal Arts continued to be the #1 source of projects, fielding 30 this semester.  However, the strategic partnership with Earth & Mineral Sciences at University Park brought a tie for #2 with Health and Human Development, each with 11 projects.  Other notable sources of non-Humanities course projects in Spring 2014 were the Smeal College of Business (6) and Eberly College of Science (5).

A theme of the Spring semester was the ways in which Media Commons – through resources, initiatives and in-class training - has been able to help foster connections within and between communities at the local, regional and global levels.  This potential for world-wide impact was explored by three intrepid instructors through a new Collaborative Video Pilot.  The pilot allows students – regardless of geographic location or computing platform – to edit video with classmates using software that requires only a web browser and internet connection.  Initial feedback is encouraging and MC staff looks forward to rolling out a larger pilot through Summer and into Fall.

The One Button Studio continues to expand its democratization of the video production process through strategic partnership with Media Commons spaces and support.  New studios came online during Spring 2014 at Penn State Behrend, Penn State Berks and in the Pollock location at Penn State University Park.  At the same time, existing OBS installations gave voice to 1,317 students, faculty and staff as they logged 552 appointments, totaling 182 hours in 3,658 video projects.

The Media Commons website has become a wildly popular resource for those seeking multimedia production support – even outside the University.  The Free Media Library is now the second most visited item on the site, logging nearly 9,000 visits in Spring alone.  These visits came from across the globe, with particular interest from our friends in Great Britain, Canada and Australia (13% of visits, up from 6.5% in Fall 2013).

The Spring 2014 semester also saw courses using MC resources to engage with – and understand the dynamics of – the communities around them.  Dr. Cassandra Butterworth-Miller asked her Biology 220W students to produce public service announcements that not only highlighted biological issues with regional significance to the Beaver campus, but that also called viewers to realistic action.  While the western MC consultant was busy offering critiques and grading advice, University Park consultants were busy with an 80 student section of CAS 175.  Groups in this course taught by Craig Rood were asked to analyze how media has been used to influence mass audiences and then to use these artifacts in their own video critiques of persuasion and propaganda.  Finally, two separate courses in the eastern region (at Abington and Berks) asked students to produce advertisements for local community resources.  Marketing 422 with Nick Santarone saw students creating 1-3 minute ads for groups like a local Catholic high school through a partnership with the Rotary Club while Kesha Morant-Williams asked her CAS 100H groups to record either video or audio ads to be broadcast in support of the Reading Health System and its wellness services.

To get all the details about these Spring 2014 highlights and more, download the full report below:

Full Media Commons Spring 2014 Report (PDF)

Chrystine Mitchell

A Penn State Berks professor integrated digital media into her junior-level literacy block courses for elementary education students, preparing them to teach in the 21st Century classroom where digital media likely will be more and more common.

Chrystine Mitchell, assistant professor of language arts and literacy at Penn State Berks, uses digital media in three courses that are part of the literacy block, including LLED 400 Teaching Reading in the Elementary School, LLED 401 Teaching Language Arts in the Elementary School, and LLED 402 Teaching Children’s Literature. Also part of the literacy block is field experience.

“We have a partnership with a local elementary school, established for a number of years, where each of the students are paired with an elementary teacher two days per week for two hours,” Mitchell said. “This partnership allows the students to not only complete projects for my class but then implement or share them with the students in the school.”

Mitchell decided to have her students produce digital media to prepare them for teaching in a modern environment that they will encounter after graduation. “I believe that in order to be able to be ready to teach in the 21st century future teachers need to be equipped with knowledge and practice using numerous digital tools,” she said.

Mitchell said she introduced digital media in the courses in the following ways:

LLED 400: Mitchell said, “The students needed to create a digital photo journal to illustrate the components of a balanced literacy program. I explained to them that this is something they will either want to incorporate into their digital portfolios or link to for a professional web page they can share with future employers.”

LLED 401: “The students are asked to create a literacy hot topic digital group project.  The purpose of this project is to allow the students to choose a topic that has meaning to them and create a digital footprint with useful resources to share with one another and other professionals in regard to the topic.  I leave it open-ended for them to decide the medium to present the information but examples could include a podcast, Pinterest page, website, Facebook page, or video. This semester I had three groups create a web page, one group created a Pinterest page, and one group created a cartoon using Powtoons.”

LLED 402: “I have the students create a web page for an author student or content area, with an annotated bibliography, for their students to access and use. I also utilize the digital media project that was done by my predecessors, including Toni Vanino, before my arrival at Penn State Berks, where the students work in grade-level teams to create a content-area video related to a social studies or science topic the students in the field placements will be studying. These 3-5 minute videos ranged this year from topics like Jamestown, Thomas Edison, Milton Hershey, needs and wants, maps and globes, and the three branches of government.”

Mitchell said that these experiences have influenced her students’ thinking on the use of digital media for their future classrooms, and has made them feel more comfortable about their own media production skills. “It is essential for students to not only be exposed to different forms of digital media but also have multiple experiences using different types so they will have an established comfort level with the tools,” Mitchell said. “The students often remark about the process, how important it is to know how to do it, and that they will definitely be using videos and other mediums in the future classrooms because they witness firsthand how engaged their students are when given the opportunity to see the videos. One student remarked how the video their group created helped her class of students ‘connect the dots’ and bring the learning together.”

Along with benefits for the students, Mitchell said using digital media for teaching literacy has advantages for her as well. She noted that digital media makes the content she is teaching more relevant.

Penn State Berks elementary education students collaborate on digital media projects during class.

“I can incorporate different websites, videos and apps into my instruction that demonstrate the concepts I am trying to teach,” Mitchell said. “This helps to build their knowledge base and they can watch me model different means of incorporating technology. In turn, the pre-service teachers can witness how teaching literacy using digital media allows reading and writing to “come to life” for their students. It helps build young students’ background knowledge, makes learning fun, allows for deeper comprehension, enriches vocabulary, helps students improve fluency, and the list can continue.”

One example she gave was from her own experience teaching first graders from Trenton, New Jersey back in 2001. She read a story to them about a crab from the Chesapeake Bay, but did not realize that the students not only did not know what a crab was, but never had been to a beach nor aquarium. She said showing those students online panoramic videos of a beach, aquariums, and crabs would give them the background information they were lacking.

Challenges that Mitchell face include the digital media learning curve and the time needed to teach students how to create and use digital media. She said that Carla Rapp, traveling media consultant with the Media Commons, has been a big help. “I typically speak with Chystine through email, or in person, prior to the beginning of the semester,” Rapp said. “We discuss the projects and possible training dates for her students. During the semester I conduct about two to three training sessions per class. The first two are on either iMovie or GarageBand and scholarly storytelling. The last is for a critique of the student’s work.”

To Rapp, the proof that the students learned new digital media skills was evident in the finished product. Here are several examples:

• Hot Topic Literacy Project
• Author Studies
• Digital Media Project

“The students certainly were able to produce great projects,” Rapp said. “I believe that through their diligent work, the encouragement from their instructor, and the support from Media Commons they were able to work through these projects and have great skills to showcase by the end.”

“The help I received from Carla and the Media Commons is enormous and I can’t imagine any of this without her,” Mitchell added. “She has been amazing to work with and offers the students instruction in other important areas like copyright law and how to use Creative Commons. I think one of the best aspects of teaching at Penn State is the technological support we have in so many areas.”

(Original article by Jamie Oberdick for Teaching and Learning with Technology)

During the summer of 2014, the One Button Studio in the Pollock Building will be the primary One Button Studio for the Media Commons at University Park as the Knowledge Commons will be closed for construction and renovation on the second floor of Pattee Library until July. Please feel free to email us at mediacommons@psu.edu for more information on using the Pollock Building One Button Studio.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact your local consultant(s) for more information.

After a few weeks of planning and preparation, Penn State Behrend is just about ready to take the wraps off of its new One Button Studio in the Lilley Library. Taking the place of the traditional video studio in Room 23. The One Button Studio at Behrend features the latest software and hardware innovations, based on lessons learned in the Knowledge Commons installations at University Park.

The One Button Studio is the perfect place to record presentations, practice your language skills, build video modules for online courses and much, much more. And it’s available to all students, faculty and staff for any of your project needs! If you’re an instructor at Behrend, you can even let us know that you’re interested in using the OBS in your classes this Fall by filling out this quick form.

Big thanks to all the folks at Behrend in the IT department and Library who helped make this new One Button Studio a reality. Look for an announcement on campus soon for the official grand opening date!