Jump to content

Menu

Discovery Education drives me nuts (re: organizing content)


Recommended Posts

Is it just me, or is it really hard to organize stuff on Discovery Education Streaming?

 

It may be just me. I'm hoping it's just me and some clever WTMer can show me the way!

 

We have a Discovery Ed Streaming Plus membership. We enjoy the content. BUT I feel like it is so hard to keep track of stuff!

 

- How can I see what we have watched before? I really want to see our History so I can know what we watched most recently, but even in My Content list I can find no indication that we have watched something already.

- How can I see the true complete list of a series? (If I search by the series title I get lots more stuff than JUST the series; if I look at the bottom of the page of a video from the series, it only lists 6 items from the series even if the series is far longer than that.)

- How can i browse series? (how does one pluralize "series"? serieses?)

- Can I save a SERIES to watch rather than saving all the individual videos?

- If a video SEGMENT shows up in my search results, how do I know what full video it is from? (*without* clicking on it and opening it which gets ridiculous when the search results is a long list)

 

We use Hulu and YouTube a ton and find them SO Much easier to navigate and save/find what I want. I'm hoping I'm just missing something on Discovery Ed and it is easier than I think...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You aren't alone, the organization option are terrible.  Sometimes I do a Google search to find out how many episodes are in a series and in what order.  I search only for full videos because the segment issue drives me bonkers.  :)

 

If you want to keep track of what you watched, you could assign each video (or set) via the Board Builder and then save the board permanently so you could see that you'd watched it.  It might be possible to keep better track if you assigned videos to a class or student and then watched them via student view, but I found doing that too much work to bother.  Maybe after you watch a video save it to a folder called "Viewed" in the file organization section?  

 

Since I'm keeping track for a high school student, I actually set up a separate database where I enter the subject, Title and length of each video he watches.  I was just keeping it as a list (in columns using Excel) but wanted to be able to sort alphabetically so I could quickly find out if I'd watched something or not, so now I've gone to an Access database.  Overkill I'm sure, but I will need the time and topic to determine if I've met my credit hour goals.  It is more work than it should be as I keep his other progress in Excel-lots of switching between programs when I'm recording grades, etc.  What would be lovely is a quarterly report from DE listing viewed videos.  (But then again, I've not researched student view to see if that's possible...)

 

You might be able to just keep an alphabetical list using a table in Word if you don't need all the extra details.

 

FWIW, I've totally given up on the organization files and just save stuff to the Quicklist and then delete it as I assign it (using a board).    

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

You aren't alone, the organization option are terrible.

 

Well RATS. I was SO hoping you would say, "You are just being dense, and here are all the fabulous organizational tools you have overlooked!"

 

Thanks for all the tips on how you do it. I think I'm just going to create a Viewed folder. Doesn't really solve all of my problems but it sounds like it is the least trouble for now.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I love the content, but the searching and organizing are a nightmare.  It didn't go down cheap enough for me at the last HSBC sale, so I didn't repurchase it, but I'm regretting that... I loved the content.  I just don't understand why it costs so much, and they can't hire a decent UI designer to make a decent website.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I love the content, but the searching and organizing are a nightmare.  It didn't go down cheap enough for me at the last HSBC sale, so I didn't repurchase it, but I'm regretting that... I loved the content.  I just don't understand why it costs so much, and they can't hire a decent UI designer to make a decent website.

 

I agree - I love the content, and find much that I prefer over what I can find free (though we utilize free resources too, of course). But the poor usability of the site really undermines what we get out of it. I can see myself sticking with it anyway, because I DO like the content, but the annoyance factor might drive me away eventually if they don't improve it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...