Lessons

Every Course you create will have many Lessons. Lessons are pieces of content that serve to teach or test your student. There are several lesson types:

1. Text/Content
2. Video
3. Audio
4. Download
5. Assignment

Below we will go into the details and differences of each lesson type.

Text/Content

This is the default text-based lesson type. You can use the lesson editor to adjust and style text inside this type of lesson as well as add image content in between text. The same text/content area is available in all other lesson types as well. You can also add third-party media such as a Google Form or Typeform, a spreadsheet from Airtable, quizzes from Riddle, or a Google Doc directly in your lesson. See the Lesson Editor help section for more info. If you want to include another type of media in addition to text and images, you will want to use one of the lesson types below.

Video

Many of your lessons will likely be video lessons. Like text/content lessons, you can include any text needed below the video. Sometimes you might not want to include any at all, but other times it might be a good idea to include a short description or a transcript. There are two ways in which you can add videos to your lessons:

Adding via Video Upload

Heights offers a robust video hosting and encoding service with multiple benefits over third-party video providers. If you prefer to upload your video files directly to Heights instead of using a third-party video service, you can upload a video file from your computer and we will transcode it into multiple resolutions and file types it so that it can be played back quickly across every kind of device.

What makes our video hosting better?

• Built-in branding. Your video player automatically adopts the color theme set in your account settings. Nothing to configure.
• Built-in security. Students cannot view or embed your video on any domain other than your program.
• Built-in analytics. When editing a lesson with a video attached that is hosted with Heights, you will see total watch time right on the lesson itself.
• Adjustable playback speed option on the player.
• Upload in any resolution and we’ll convert and encode your video for all devices from 240p to 1080p. Playback can dynamically adapt resolution and video is delivered to your students via a CDN for fast loading anywhere in the world.

After you upload your video and the upload completes, you will need to click "Save Lesson" to save the uploaded data. After you save, we will begin encoding your video for fast playback across devices and geographic locations. If you upload a large video, it will take a few minutes to finish the encoding process. When viewing your lesson if you see a message that your video is still encoding, you can leave the page open, or navigate away to work on other lessons, and your video will appear automatically when encoding is complete.

We recommend you save your videos at the following bitrates for fastest processing and uploading: 1080p content at a bitrate of 8 Mbps, or 720p content at 4.8 Mbps.

Videos uploaded to your Heights account will be encoded at a max of 1080p resolution. Our built-in video player will automatically match the color theme set for your account and includes a playback speed option that may be helpful to students who would like to listen to your content either faster or slower.

Adding via Video URL

The "Video URL" is simply the link you see in the address bar of your browser when on the desired video page. There is no need to find your video platform's specific embed code. Simply copy the URL of the video on Youtube, Vimeo, Wistia, or almost any other popular platform and paste it in the "Video URL" field.

Adding via video URL is a great option if you already have your video content stored somewhere online, or if you prefer the video player of a different service.

Audio

Audio lessons can be played directly from the lesson page using our built in player. Like video lessons, you may use the text area to include a transcript of what is said in the audio. To create an audio lesson, choose the Audio lesson type and upload your MP3 file.

Download

If you would like to provide something for your students to download, choose the Download lesson type and either upload your file or paste in the URL of the file you are providing for download. If you choose to paste a URL, this can be a Dropbox or Google Drive URL, or it can be a link to a file you have hosted somewhere else online.

If you do not want your students to be able to share the URL of your file with others, we recommend uploading your file instead of adding via URL.

Uploading Multiple Files

You can add multiple files as a single download in one lesson by uploading a zip folder of files. Students will be able to download the zip folder and get the whole package of files. This makes the process more efficient for students because the download file is compressed and will download faster for them.

Assignment

If you would like to collect information from your students, you can use the Assignment lesson type. This lesson type allows you to supply a question at the bottom of your lesson content. Your students will be required to answer this question before they can complete the lesson. As a creator, you can view the list of all of your student's answers by navigating to the Student Answers page available in the sidebar of your Creator Dashboard. You can also use Zapier to be notified when a student submits a new answer (See API & Zapier).

Can I Include Multiple Types of Lesson Content in a Single Lesson?

To create a consistent experience for your students and ensure they know what to expect when navigating your course, a lesson cannot have multiple types other than the ability for all lessons to contain text and images. However, there is one exception to this rule: If you upload an audio file to an Audio lesson and then change the lesson type to Video, your lesson can have an audio player appear simultaneously below the video player. We offer this option incase you would like to have a video lesson with a separate audio track underneath (potentially followed by a transcript added in the lesson text), so that your students can choose how they want to consume your content.

To learn about editing your Lessons themselves, see our guide on the Lesson Editor.