How to use groups, playlists, and assignments (overview)

Getting Video Sharing Right with WeVu Groups, Playlists, Assignments

This mini-guide is for teachers, instructors, coaches, or managers so that you can get your WeVu site set up in the right way to share videos and have students submit video smoothly.  It introduces Playlists, Groups, and Assignments as the tools you’ll use so that the right people see the right videos.

Think of Playlists, Groups, and Assignments, in very general terms, as the same thing. They are just containers. You share videos with Playlists, Groups, or Assignments in the same way; they all appear as ‘locations’ to which you (or your learners) can share  a particular video.

• Playlists are containers for videos (each week’s video material, or a thematic collection)
• Groups are containers for people (groups of learners or participants)
• Assignments make separate containers for each learner’s upload to that Assignment. That container is then visible to the learner and the instructor/coach

You’ll get the most out of WeVu by carefully planning your use of Groups and Assignments. Then you’ll need to make it very clear to students what they should share in Groups versus what they ‘share’ to an Assignment. In our experience, they need multiple reminders. One way to do that is to use the Site Instructions area, which you’ll see at the bottom of the Watch & Discuss screen.

An Example:

Amelia teaches business communication. She wants students to do group presentations and individual video assignments, plus watch some videos organized by week.

First, she creates playlists for each week (Week 1, Week 2, …).  She uploads or imports videos into her private videos area and then shares those videos with the appropriate week. Her syllabus and weekly modules in the learning management system point students to WeVu and to each week’s playlist.

Second, for group presentations, she divides her class of 30 into six groups of 5. She uses the Create Groups tab, giving each group a name (either a group number or all the first names of the students), and then in the Non-Members box she selects the five students by clicking on each with ctrl-click (cmd-click).  She moves these over to the Group Members box. She does this for each group. Then, when a group records their presentation on one student’s phone or computer, that student can share the presentation with her own group; so students need to know their group name or number.  Amelia tells her students that the student uploader can share it to the group in the Private or Shared videos tabs. Instructors can always see all of the videos that students have shared. Students won’t be able to see presentations by other groups unless Amelia changes the course settings to enable that.

Third, Amelia wants students to record their own individual presentations and make an animated marketing video.  Using the Create Assignment tab she creates “A1 – Business Strategy Presentation” and another one called “A2 – Marketing Video”.  On each assignment she tells students to upload their video to WeVu and then go into Private videos and share the video with the appropriate assignment.

Then, when she wants to give feedback and assess those videos, Amelia just finds the Groups or the Assignments under Playlists on the Watch & Discuss screen.

Understanding Sharing Videos

Before you create Playlists, Groups, and Assignments you should understand the sharing of video in WeVu.

Each video is shared with one ‘target’, which can be a person, a Group, a Playlist, or an Assignment.

Once a video is uploaded, the user who uploaded it will see it under their “Private Videos” tab. By default, a video(s) stays private until the user assigns it to a course, group, assignment, or user. The user will click on the “PRIVATE TO ME ONLY, CLICK TO SHARE” sharing box and select a Site and a group, playlist, assignment, or user from the list to share it the way the user wishes to share it. (This can be changed by the user at any time later).

To Create a Playlist

Click on Playlists on the left menu. Ensure that the Select Site box has the site or course you want. Then give the Playlist a name.  That’s it. You can do this very quickly for multiple playlists by typing in the name, hitting the Create Playlist button, and then doing another. For example, you could do Week 1 through Week 12; or a baseball team could have playlists for Swings, Infield, Outfield, Pitching, Catching, Baserunning.

To Create a Group

Click on Groups on the left menu. Ensure that the Select Site box has the site or course you want and you get the list of learners you are expecting to see. Consider whether you want groups numbered, named, or titled with the names of the people in the group. You could call a group “David, Farouz, Michelle, Bozena”, for example.

Give the Group a name. To create the group you must select a minimum of two users from the Group Non-Members box on the left. This is because each person is already, automatically, his/her own individual ‘group’ – you don’t need to create one for an individual.

So select one user and then select additional users by using ctrl-click (Win) or cmd-click (Mac) or a range of users by clicking one user and then shift-click the last user you want. Once you have all your users selected, use the right arrow button to move them into the Group Members box. Then click the Create Group button.

To Create an assignment

Assignments are hand-in boxes for each user (student).  Click on Assignments on the left menu or the Create Assignment tab. Ensure that the Select Site box has the site or course you want.

Give the Assignment a name and then click Create Assignment. Make sure your Assignment to your learners tells them that after they upload, they should go to Private Videos and then share their upload to the appropriate Assignment. It’s just like assigning a video to a Playlist or Group.

Modifying a Playlist, Group, or Assignment

Click on Groups, Playlists or Assignments from the left menu to get to the Organize page. Use the far-right “Modify” tab. Ensure that the Select Site box has the site or course you want. In the View or Modify box you can find a playlist, group, or assignment by starting to type part of the name in the box. Choose the one you want.

Informing your learners

The most important step in all of this is to communicate clearly and firmly to your learners or team about what they need to do. We recommend that you inform them about Groups, Playlists, and Assignments when you first share the WeVu signup link with them. You could say:

WeVu is a way for us to share videos and submit assignments. We can all upload videos to WeVu. Once they are uploaded, they appear in a Private Videos area. Then, if you are sharing your video with a Group or submitting to an Assignment, you find your uploaded video in the Private Videos list and then ‘share’ it to the Group or to the Assignment. If it’s an Assignment it will only be visible to you, the student, and me, the instructor.

If learners are submitting Assignments or sharing with Groups, you should ask them to title their videos according to a titling protocol you provide. One possibility is that the title have their name as Last_First – Subject of Video (e.g. “Smith_Darren – Assignment 1” or “Wu_Han – Sim 1”) or a Group video could use all student names and then the name of the assignment (e.g. “David, Farouz, Michelle, Bozena – Pres 1”).  Users can put the title in from the Upload screen, or after the fact on the Private or Shared Videos screens.