Who can do this?
These procedures must be performed by a Moodle administrator.
The instructions below add the EchoVideo media linking tool as an external LTI tool in Moodle at the organizational or institutional level. This makes the tool available for any courses configured for the institution.
In the event your institution does not use the EchoVideo easy-embed tool button for content windows, OR you need a different kind of tool to add media links to places that do not have a content window for embedding, you can create an External LTI tool that is selectable as an Activity. Users can select the EchoVideo embed media activity, then select content, and provide direct, easy access to a piece of media.
The process for creating the tool is the same as the one used to add EchoVideo to Moodle as an external LTI tool for linking to EchoVideo sections or classes, with the added step of checking the content-item-messaging checkbox for the tool.
Some institutions were using the section-linking tool to provide links to EchoVideo classes (in the section) for direct access to media. But if the LMS course is copied or cloned, those links break. The External LTI Tool for media linking uses a similar process but these links PERSIST to any copies or clones made of the LMS course.
HELPFUL TIP: Selecting and copying the configuration values from EchoVideo to the LMS can be difficult. To select the full value of an LMS configuration field in EchoVideo, do the following:
1) Use your mouse to select a portion of the field values.
2 Press Ctrl + A / Command + A to "select all" of the field.
3) Press Ctrl + C / Command + C to copy the selected value.
4) Paste the value into the corresponding field in the LMS LTI External Tool configuration.
To create an External LTI Tool in Moodle for Media Links
- Log into Moodle as an administrator.
- From the Settings menu, select Site administration / Plugins / Activity modules.
- Under Activity Modules select External Tools Manage Tools (this may vary, depending on the version of Moodle you are using).
The below figure highlights the selection breadcrumbs across the top of the screen, to help you find the location in the Moodle interface. Refer to your Moodle documentation for further assistance if needed.
- On the Manage Tools page, click configure a tool manually, as identified in the above figure
- In the Tool Settings page that appears, enter a Tool Name that clearly identifies this as the EchoVideo media embedding tool you are configuring. Each activity option has its own name. Make sure it is clear to users that THIS is the Activity to select for linking to / embedding EchoVideo media.
- Copy the following fields from the Moodle LTI Profile in EchoVideo into the corresponding fields on the Tool settings form (see the Helpful Tip earlier on this page):
- Tool URL Host URL
- Consumer Key Consumer Key
- Shared Secret Shared Secret
- In the Tool configuration usage drop-down list, select Show in activity chooser and as a preconfigured tool, as shown in the below figure.
This is required for the EchoVideo tool to appear in the Select an activity list for users, which then generates a page for linking to and embedding EchoVideo media.
- For Default launch container, select Embed without blocks.
In truth, this setting can be whatever you want and does not affect the linking to EchoVideo media. The selection identified here simply embeds the media into the page launched by the Activity link. You can open it in a new window or tab if you prefer.
- Click Show More... to expand the form for the next steps.
- Enable the Content-item Message checkbox. This is REQUIRED to set this tool as a media embedding tool.
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OPTIONALLY: In the Icon URL field, enter the following URL (customizing the base for your region as appropriate: echo360.net.au/echo360.org.uk/echo360.ca):
https://echo360.org/assets/images/echo360_play_icon.png - Expand the Privacy section of the page.
- Set the Privacy options as shown above. The first two are required to authenticate users into EchoVideo from Moodle.
- Share launcher's name with tool Always
- Share launcher's email with tool Always
- The Accept grades from tool can be left at the default, Delegate to teacher. EchoVideo does not currently export media-specific analytics to LMS / VLE Gradebook but may in the future. Regardless, this is likely to be at the discretion of the instructor.
- Enable the Force SSL checkbox.
- Complete any other fields in the form as appropriate for your institution.
- When finished, click Save changes.
The EchoVideo External LTI Tool should now appear in the list of selections for adding an External Tool activity / resource to any Moodle course.