Discovery+Streaming+Tips+and+Tricks

=Creating Interactive Learning Opportunities with Discovery Education= The following instructions will allow you to utilize Discovery Education's vast array of educational resources to create media-rich, interactive lessons and assignments.

Creating your Classroom
Discovery now allows you to create a classroom by entering your student information into the site. This gives the students access to a personalized homepage with your assignments and resources and FULL ACCESS to the media files hosted on Discovery Education. Be aware that this allows students to search out, download and watch ANY VIDEO on the site! Make sure that you address proper use of this site.

Also as the student logs in for the first time they will be asked if they are over 13 or not. For all students that are not over 13 we must send home a notification from Discovery about the use of the site. Log in once as a student and print out the form to send home with everyone, **prior to having the class use the website**.

It is not necessary to create a class to make interactive lessons. You can choose to give the students a code or direct link to your created assignments. All of the following instructions show you how to do it this way.

Image Based Directions for Creating Your Classroom

Building your "Content"
It is often helpful to be able to save items that you find in Discovery Education's media library to allow you to locate it later when building assignments and activities.

Image Based Directions for Gathering Content

Creating a Writing Prompt
Discovery has a mountain of premade writing prompts to choose from however you may wish to create a custom writing prompt of your own. These prompts can be printed out or typed online by the students. Additionally you can add various media items to your writing prompt such as images or videos.

Image Based Directions for Creating Writing Prompts

Creating Quizzes
Many quizzes are also available by searching on a variety of topics as well as individual questions that you can borrow for your own assessments. The following directions explain how to create a quiz, with some media component (video, image, game, etc.) and then assign it to your students. Those students will be able to watch the video and immediately answer questions based on the content.

Image Based Directions for Creating Quizzes

Creating Assignments
Assignments in Discovery Education are the most versatile form available to bring interactive lessons to your students. They can be as simple as giving a group of students access to a skill builder or as complex as an entire lesson with videos, skill builders, quizzes and writing prompts. This is presented last because each assignment can contain the quizzes and writing prompts that you have already created.

Image Based Directions for Creating Assignments

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How to Download Movies with Close-Captioning
To find videos that have close-captioning, use the advance search in Discovery:


 * 1) Download the video and save to a folder on your desktop. To download videos, control-click - Save Link As on the film icon within the segment you want,
 * 2) Download the CC file that comes with the segment (control-click - Save Link As). Put the CC file and the video segment in the same folder.
 * 3) Make sure both the video and the text file have the exact same name. Do not delete the extensions, which should be different. Example: herberthoover.mov (video file) and herberthoover.smi (text file)
 * 4) To play, control-click on the video file. When the menu pops up, choose Open With and then choose VLC. If VLC is not in your pop up list, choose Other and locate the VLC application in the application folder. It should be in your list from then on.
 * 5) Play the video. The Close Captioning should show up with the video.

You may want to edit the text by enlarging it, changing the color, or even adding another language. To edit the CC file:


 * 1) Open the file in a program in which you can edit text (text edit, word, etc.). You will see the html code for the CC.
 * 2) Edit the appropriate code. You will see something that looks like this:

margin-right: 1pt; margin-bottom: 2pt; margin-top: 2pt; text-align: center; font-size: 10 pt; (to change the font size, change this number) font-family: Arial; font-weight: bold; font-style: normal; color: WHITE ; } (to change the color, change this. If there are letters and numbers there you will have to insert the actual code which you can find here)