Images and videos can be a great resources for your Canvas courses.
One key recommendation is to add an alt text description to images that will show up in case there's an issue loading the image. This alt text also identifies the image for individuals using screen readers.
You can add videos to your course by embedding them in Pages or by adding videos as Module Items. The video direction tabs below explain the steps for both embedded videos and videos as Module Items. You can always create a link to a video the same way that you would create any other link in a Page or Assignment.
To change the playback speed of a video in Kaltura/My Media, see the "Playback Speed" tab on the Kaltura (My Media, Media Gallery) page.
You can add images by uploading them to your universal Canvas files, Course files, or by uploading them directly to the page you are working on. If you plan to reuse an image across multiple courses, I recommend uploading it to your universal Canvas files.
Click on "Account" in the Canvas universal sidebar. This is directly below the icon or photo you have uploaded in Canvas.
This will open your universal Canvas account file folder. You can organize files in folders by clicking the "+Folder" button at the top right of the page. You can add files by clicking the red "Upload" button at the top right.
You will always be able to reorganize files by dragging them between folders or by hovering over the file and clicking on the three dots that appear at the right. Clicking on these dots will give you the option to download, rename, move, delete, or share the file to Canvas Commons, as shown in the screenshot below.
If you only want to use your images in a certain class, use the course menu to navigate to your Files folder.
This will open the files you have saved in this particular course. You can organize and work with the files in the same way you do the files in your universal account files.
If you are working on a page in Canvas and want to upload an image that you have not yet uploaded, open the rich text editor for the page, click the "Insert" tab, select "Image," then select "Upload Image."
A pop up page will appear. Follow the directions to upload your image. You can add alt text directly on this pop up page.
If you have already have the image you want to use in your universal or course files, click on the "Insert" dropdown menu and select the appropriate category. The "Image," "Media," and "Document" options ultimately route you into the same system, so for if some reason one selection doesn't work, you will still be able to look for your file within the side menu that opens.
The "Insert" dropdown opens a side screen selection system called "Add" on the right of your screen. For this example, I had saved the files I wanted in my "Course Files" folder on Canvas, so I was able to find them by selecting "Course Files" in the top field and "Images" in the dropdown below that.
It may be useful to create a page with images for your course. To demonstrate this, I will be inserting images into a study guide for an art history course.
1. In the text box, place your cursor where you want the image to be located.
2. Locate the image icon in the tool bar above the text box.
3. Select the location you are drawing your image from. For this example, I selected "Course Images" to choose from one of the images I had uploaded to the course files. This opens a new side menu on the right with any images you have available.
4. Click on the image you want to insert. Once the image appears in your text box, it may be an inconvenient size. You can resize your image a few different ways. The easiest is to click on the image and drag the corners when the image highlights in blue. Alternatively, you can resize the image by clicking on it. A tooltip that says "Image Options" will appear. Click this to open a new side menu.
5. The Image Options menu at the right will give you several ways to resize your image, including pixels, percentage of the view screen width, and custom.
6. You may want to experiment with these options. For this example I selected Custom and chose the Medium size.
7. Your image will appear in its new resized format. Be sure to click "Save" at the bottom of the page to see your page with images!
It is best practice to include alt text whenever you upload images online. This alt text displays when an image has trouble loading, and provides information to individuals using screen readers. The default alt text for an image in Canvas is the name of your file, which may not make much sense to people accessing your Canvas site. Here are three ways to update your alt text.
If you have the image already uploaded to your universal or course files, navigate to your File folder. Rename your image with these steps:
When you insert an image directly to a page in Canvas, you will see a pop-up page for the upload process. Type your alt text into the box provided in the Attributes section of this pop-up page.
If you have already uploaded the image and do not want to change the name of your file, you can add alt text in the rich text editor. Insert your image, then click on it. The image will be highlighted and a tooltip that says "Image Options" will appear.
The Image Options menu will appear on the right side of your screen. The first box, labeled "Alt Text" should display default alt text using the file's name.
Replace the file title with your desired alt text and click the red "Done" button at the bottom of the menu.
As always, when you are finished editing the page, be sure to save it!
You may want to embed videos in your Canvas course. This is easy to do! I'm going to demonstrate locating the embed code in both YouTube and Vimeo.
To add a video to a module as an item (rather than embedding it in a page), see the directions at the bottom of this tab.
Method 1. Use the plugin tool to locate the video: Click on the plugin icon 
Method 2. Use the embed box to embed the code:
First, navigate to the video you want to embed and locate the "Share" button.
On Vimeo:
On YouTube:
When you click that button, a pop-up window will give you different sharing options. Locate the "Embed" option. In Vimeo, copy this code. In YouTube, click the "Embed" button. Note that on YouTube you have the option to begin your selection at a timestamp if you check the box at the bottom of the pop-up window and set a time.
On Vimeo:
On YouTube:
For YouTube videos, click the "Copy" button at the bottom of the video pop-up – this will copy all of the code so you don't need to highlight it.
Next, navigate to the Canvas Page or Assignment where you want to embed the video – you can embed a video on any Canvas item that has a content editor box.
Paste the code you copied into the pop-up box and click the "Submit" button.
Don't forget to click "Save" at the bottom of the Canvas Page or Assignment once you're done!
You can also add videos from both sources to a module by:
We recommend uploading any videos that you create or have files for to Kaltura for storage. Kaltura is the name of the tool that appears in Canvas as My Media (in the universal Canvas menu at left) and My Media (files available to a specific course). Videos uploaded to your My Media tab are available to all courses in Canvas.
You can add a video to your course by embedding it in a Page or by adding it as an item in a module.
First, open the Canvas Page where you want to embed the video. Locate the icon that looks like an electrical plug. Click on the arrow next to it and select "Embed Kaltura Media" from the dropdown menu.
Select the video that you want to embed from the pop-up window and click the "</> Embed" button.
The video will appear on your page. Don't forget to click the "Save" button!
First, click on the "+" in the Module name. In the pop-up box, select "External Tool" from the dropdown menu.
In the menu that appears, choose "Select From Kaltura Media" and click the "Add Item" button.
A new pop-up box will show you the videos in your Media Gallery. Find the video that you want to add and click the "</> Embed" button.
The "Add Item to Class Resources" box appears again. Click the "Add Item" at the bottom of the box to confirm.
Your video will appear as an item at the bottom of the module.
The library provides access to online videos through several databases (see directions on how to access them here). You can give students easy access to these by adding them to your course by embedding them in Pages or adding them as Module Items.
PLEASE NOTE that not all videos and databases may cooperate with Canvas in the same way. You will need to check which method works best with the video that you choose.
The first step with either method is to locate the Share or Embed option on the video once you have located it using the library databases. Here are some examples:
AVON (Academic Videos Online)
Click on the "Embed" tab to see sharing options.
Alexander Street
Click on the "Share" button for sharing options.
Kanopy
Click on the "Share" tab to see sharing options.
Each of these databases provides both an embed code and a permalink, which you can use to create a link to the video on a Page or as an external URL.
To embed a video, copy the embed code from the video, then open the Page where you want to embed the video. Open the editing view of the page, click on "Insert" and select "Embed" from the dropdown menu.
Paste the embed code into the pop-up box that appears and click the "Submit" button.
The video should appear on the page. Depending on the database, students (and you) may be prompted to enter your WU email or sign in through the library. If this happens, the full video will open in a new tab. Sometimes an embedded video may only display a snippet. If either of these options occur, it may be best to simply create a link to the video using the permalink provided in the database, since that will take students directly to the video on the library website.
PLEASE NOTE that some databases may not support this option. Be sure to check the item once you have created it.
Tech support: For technical assistance, start a ticket with WITS
Brainstorming: For ideas on how to use tools in your course, contact the DLS