Embedding Resources

Teachers with class pages, blogs and their own webpages and learning management systems, have to get skilled in how to embed resources.  A link just isn't good enough at times. 

 

Why? Well, when you embed, the students are much more apt to "engage" the resource. It keeps the student(s) on your page/community and keeps the learning happening, rather them going elsewhere (like youtube) and being distracted. 

 

So, what are your embedding options?  It can be frustrating but you just have to be patient and you will usually find a solution.  See my review of embed it below. A cool way to embed documents.  Further, most sites that allow you to store and present resources offer an embed code. Your work is done for you automatically. Just grab that code with <embed> or sometimes <iframe> and put it on your page. 

 

Other times, you might need to build the code yourself. Here are some  embed codes that are stable and work well. Just replace the urls with your own files;

 

Audio / mp3s - use this secret google code, just put in your own mp3 url.   (and to show/embed actual html code on a page use the <xmp></xmp> tags)

<embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="400" height="27" src="http://www.google.com/reader/ui/3523697345-audio-player.swf" _mce_src="http://www.google.com/reader/ui/3523697345-audio-player.swf" flashvars="audioUrl=MP3_FILE_URL" quality="best"></embed>

 

SWF files - 

<OBJECT classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,0,0" WIDTH="320" HEIGHT="240" id="Yourfilename" ALIGN=""> <PARAM NAME=movie VALUE="Yourfilename.swf"> <PARAM NAME=quality VALUE=high> <PARAM NAME=bgcolor VALUE=#333399> <EMBED src="Yourfilename.swf" _mce_src="Yourfilename.swf" quality=high bgcolor=#333399 WIDTH="320" HEIGHT="240" NAME="Yourfilename" ALIGN="" TYPE="application/x-shockwave-flash" PLUGINSPAGE="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"></EMBED> </OBJECT>

 

MP4 video - 

<OBJECT CLASSID="clsid:02BF25D5-8C17-4B23-BC80-D3488ABDDC6B" CODEBASE="http://www.apple.com/qtactivex/qtplugin.cab" WIDTH="160" HEIGHT="136" > <PARAM NAME="src" VALUE="videofilename.mp4" > <PARAM NAME="autoplay" VALUE="true" > <EMBED src="videofilename.mp4" _mce_src="videofilename.mp4" TYPE="image/x-macpaint" PLUGINSPAGE="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download" WIDTH="160" HEIGHT="136" AUTOPLAY="true"></EMBED> </OBJECT>

 

Here are a couple more helpful resources.   Embedding Generator /   Embedding youtube   / Embedit (see below)

 

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What you see below is the website Embedit, embeded! How's that for a double entendre?!

 

It is a great site where you can upload a document - power point, word, pdf, photo (no video or audio though). So you can upload what you use in class and embed it on your webpage for student viewing. A nice way to both present a resource and store it.
It offers a lot of cool customization. Change the background color, size, download/print options etc....Even better for teachers, mark it up with a pen and leave some visual instructions for your students. You even get some nice analytics/stats on who and how often your stuff was viewed.

No registration, you just log in using Auth0 from one of your existing accounts (google, twitter, facebook etc...). One concern for me though - Box.net recently bought them out and that means in the near future, once they get people using it - it will be restricted unless you pay. That's one cautionary note to this. But while it lasts perfect!