Rich media like videos, H5P modules, audio files, and other multimedia resources can help with student understanding in lessons. These can provide examples, context, background, or simply an additional or alternate way for a student to ingest the information in the lesson.
Media enriches courses, but where and how it is placed impacts all aspects of the course, including student learning, technical performance, and the reusability of the course itself.
Media placement affects students' focus, engagement, and needs to take into account accessibility concerns, maybe even accommodations for some. It can drastically change page load times. And where media is embedded in a given course can also have consequences when a course is updated or reused.
A course that only requires a small number of videos can get away with putting them all in one place, or all on a single course page. But a complicated course that relies heavily on embedded media, using many videos and dozens of H5P modules, should be laid out in such a way that the media does not create problems for students or the delivery of the course.
It is recommended to add video, H5P modules, or any other interactive content as their own activity (e.g., H5P Interactive Content or Kaltura Video Resource), rather than as part of a larger activity. The pedagogical benefits include a clear separation between learning activities, completion tracking, and it is easier to refer back to and grade the activity. From the technical point of view, because media loads only when a student opens that specific activity, it reduces the load on the main course page, improving performance on mobile devices and low-bandwidth connections.
It is possible to embed media directly into section summaries or labels, but there are drawbacks. Students can be overwhelmed with too much content at one time, and it can be harder to find specific media later. These items also add weight and load time to the main course page, slowing down page loads and, in some cases, making sections or even whole courses unusable on slower devices or internet connections.
Posting updates and announcements in the Announcements activity, rather than into embedding update videos directly into sections, keeps the course homepage fast, lean, and tidy, and students receive notifications automatically.
Fewer embedded items in a course means less clutter when resetting or reusing a course for a new term. Dedicated activities are better supported and tested, and would be expected to perform as expected following a Moodle upgrade. Courses that are set up in a predictable, accessible, device-friendly manner provide a consistent student experience.