8 Moodle Video Tips

8.4 Jitsi Video Conferencing Tips

Jitsi is a free open source video conferencing tool that works on any computer. It does not require setting up an account or paying a monthly fee. By contrast, Zoom charges an annual fee that runs from $150 for a single user to $250 a year for a business. You can add any number of people to your Jitsi video conference and you can run your video conference for several hours for free rather than the 40 minute limit imposed by the Zoom free account.

Why Jitsi is much more secure than Zoom
The biggest advantage of Jitsi is that it is dramatically more secure than Zoom. This is because moderators and participants do not need to download any “apps” to use Jitsi. Just open any web browser and go to your Jitsi video conference room. By contrast, to use Zoom, you need to download a closed source (and therefore insecure) Zoom app which has a file size greater than 142 MB. If you extract this file, you see these files:

Extract the largest file and click on Properties for the two folders to see that the opt folder has 1,362 files and a total file size of 523 MB.

This means that Zoom is actually larger that the Linux operating system and about 5 times larger than a draconian Deep State program called UEFI – which itself is capable of remotely bricking any Windows or Apple computer. To give you an idea of how large 523 MB is, the classic book called Moby Dick has 213,533 words divided over about 400 pages. The book Moby Dick has a file size of about 1 megabyte. Thus the Zoom app is the equivalent of more than 500 copies of Moby Dick or more than 200,000 pages of code!

But the worst part is that nearly all of this code is hidden. It is not open source. It is not subject to an independent inspection or audit. This makes the Zoom app one of the worst pieces of malware ever written. Requiring your participants to each download this app and placing it on their computer not only places your computer at risk – but also the computers of all of your students. Thus, even if Zoom was free, you should not use it or force others to use it.

By contrast, the code for Jitsi is entirely open source and therefore subject to public audits. These audits can and do confirm that there are no hidden back doors in any Jitsi programs. Now that we know some of the benefits of Jitsi, let’s see how easy it is to use.

8.3 Moodle Video Conferencing Tools

Moodle does not provide a video conferencing tool itself, but there are a number of different tools that integrate with Moodle. One of these tools, called Big Blue Button requires setting up a separate server. The server must have at least 4 CPUs and 8 GB of RAM. The second option, called Open Meetings, also requires setting up a separate server. The third option, called Zoom, involves installing a Zoom app and getting a Zoom account for teachers and paying a considerable amount of money. Zoom is not open source and is considered “malware” by many Linux security experts. The fourth and best option, called Jitsi, comes with two version. The first version involves setting up a separate server. The second version is free and simply uses the existing Jitsi Meet server.

We will review using this second version of Jitsi as it does not require setting up a server or downloading any apps or setting up any accounts or paying any money. Jitsi Meet is a very secure option and can be learned by both teachers and students in a matter of minutes. The Moodle Jitsi plugin (which is technically an Activity Module) allows creating jitsi-meet video conference sessions fully integrated in Moodle. These video conferences will use your Moodle username by displaying your username and avatar in video conferences.

Whether you use the public server provided by Jitsi (meet.jit.si) or use your own Jitsi video conferencing server, with this plugin you can create video conferencing sessions in your Moodle courses in a simple way: just configure the domain of the Jitsi server and then, in your course, create a new Jitsi activity. Schedule your video conferences in time and make them accessible with The minutes as you want. In addition, the session will be shown in the Moodle calendar. Jitsi allows video conference recording, direct transmission to YouTube, screen sharing, full screen display, statistics display, among other features and all these options are fully compatible with this module.

Here is a link to the Moodle Jitsi plugin: https://moodle.org/plugins/mod_jitsi

After installing the Jitsi Activity Module, you can adjust these settings:

The default domain is to use the Jitsi server. If you wanted to set up your own Jitsi server with a different domain name like video.collegeintheclouds.com you can set that above. To create our own Jitsi meeting room, we will change the domain to: meet.jit.si/college-in-the-clouds

Note: Do not add the HTTPS prefix! You can also add Help instructions and images in the box provided. For ID user, you can either use the Moodle usernames or first plus last name or an alias. Then scroll down the page to set these options:

8.2 Create and Post Course Videos

One of the most effective ways to promote your online course is to create and post course videos on a course video channel - and then embed those videos on your course website pages. Videos combine powerful visual images with audio – which can be a combination of music and spoken words. It is easy to embed your videos on your course website as well as place links to your videos in the Activities area of your Moodle course. Here is an overview of this process:

Step 1 Create Slide Images with Libre Draw

In our previous article, 8.1, we explained how to create a series of images for our first Topic Slideshow. Use the 12 wide by 6.75 Libre Draw Template for the Page Format. Then add images and text, then capture the images with Flameshot. Then precisely resize and crop the images with Gthumb.

Step 2 Create a Slide Presentation with Libre Impress
Also in article 8.1, we reviewed how to create a Libre Impress Slideshow with a ratio of 16 by 9 using a Slide Property of 10 inches wide by 5.62 inches high. We will use this same slideshow for our video presentation. But we will add a more interesting slide transition to go from slide to slide during our video. Open the Impress Presentation file:

8.1 Create Course Slide Presentations

Course videos can introduce your students who are more visually oriented with a summary of the most important information in each lesson. The first step in creating a course video is creating a course slide presentation. You can create one slide presentation per topic or one slide presentation per lesson.

Ideally, you should create your written lessons first. As noted previously, each of our courses includes 9 chapters each of which is divided into 4 sections, with each section associated with a one hour video conference. If we created one video per section, the video might be an hour long. As each section or lesson includes two to four Topics, a better option is to create one video per Topic. With 36 sections per course and an average of 2 to 3 topics per section, we will be making about 80 to 100 15 to 20 minute videos per course.

Each of our written lessons or sections is 10 to 20 pages long and includes 10 to 20 images with the intention that it can be read in about one hour. Each topic we therefore be about 3 to 5 pages long and include 3 to 5 images. Most images are likely to be screen shots which will not be the correct ratio for our videos – all of which should be 16 by 9. It is common for instructors to just display their written article and then explain the steps. But it is better to create 16 by 9 images which will display better on the video.