LEARNING ZONE BROADBAND

Learning Zone Scotland has merged with Class Clips to form a single, UK wide archive of educational video and audio clips.

All the clips and the information about them are exactly the same as on the old site. You'll still be able search using keywords but with Class Clips you can also select level, subject and topic to help you find clips relevant to you.

Select either primary or secondary to see clips from programmes originally aimed at these levels. After you have selected the level, you will see a range of subjects in the next box. Scroll up and down until you find what you need. Click and highlight either one subject or choose all subjects.

There is a list of topics in the right-hand box. Scroll up and down and select a topic or choose all topics. Click the Browse button and after a few seconds the page will change and you should see a list of clips available under the particular topics. You may need to scroll down the page to see the full list of results.

If there are many clips, you will see Previous page or Next page buttons at the top and the bottom of the list. You can view your selection as a list or as a grid by clicking on the "View by" button.

You can refine your search by typing in a keyword in the box marked "Search within your results".

Look through the information provided alongside the picture for each clip. In the list view, there is a short description, along with related words associated with the clip. In the grid view, you can see the short description by hovering the cursor over the image.

If you need more information or want to watch the clip, click on the title or image.

You might prefer to search for material based on a keyword search. This gives you the freedom to find all the clips available which feature any particular word and not be limited by level and subject.

Type your keyword into the search box at the top of the page. Click the Search button and, after a few seconds, you should see a list of available clips which feature that keyword in some way. You may need to scroll down the page to see the full list of results.

If there are many clips, they will again appear over several pages and again you can view the clips as a list or as a grid by selecting the "View by" button.

You can refine your search by typing another word in the box marked "Search within your results".

Look through the information provided alongside the picture of each clip. If you need more information or want to watch the clip, click on the title or image.

Whether browsing by subject or searching by keyword, search results can be refined further. On the search result page, there is a line of information to indicate what your initial search was.

Using the Search within your results box, allows you to do just that. Adding another word will refine the search further, ie a search on "river" can be refined to only clips which mention "floods" as well.

And you can also filter the level by primary or secondary with the Filter by box.

Using a "+" between words in the Search box will bring back a results list with only clips including BOTH words.

Using a "*" at the end of a word, ie pray*, will mean you'll get results for words with different endings, ie pray, prayer, prayers and praying.

Unfortunately, the use of quotation marks around phases does not enable searches on the phrase only.

We continue to offer clip material for college level but as there is a limited scope on the browse functionality we have removed this for the time being.

The ability to browse by college level will return to the site at a later date.

There is different information about each of the clips available from BBC Learning Zone Broadband. The clip number is above the image. Make a note of this as it makes it easier to find the clip again.

Click the boxes on the right to reveal the information under each title.

Key Info - includes the duration of the clip, a longer description and words associated with it.

Ideas for use in the classroom - these are written by teachers with suggestions about how the clip could be used in class.

Background details - technical information about the clip and the target language.

Video options - the location for Real Media, Windows Media and Flash files for each clip. (See separate help section below about how you can add these to a PowerPoint presentation.)

If a clip seems suitable for you, click the Play button to watch it.

If you have Flash on your machine, the clip will play from the page. This embedded media player will allow you to play the clip at full screen. Once you have started the clip, click the button at the bottom right to make it full screen.

If you don't have Flash, and it is the first time you have played a video from the BBC website, a small box will appear. Follow the instructions on the screen to pick the quality of the video best suited to your machine and internet connection. 'High quality' will produce a video similar to VHS. We do not recommend 'standard quality' if you plan to play the video at full screen or project it in the classroom. You can also choose the video file format, from either Windows Media or Real Media. If you are unsure, accept the default settings and see what happens. Click OK to confirm your settings.

After a few moments the video player window should open, and your computer will start to connect to the video. It can be 10 seconds or more before the video runs.

The video player window allows you to play the clip at full screen (if you are using Internet Explorer on a PC), change the settings, or launch a standalone player. If you want to show the clip more than once, keep the player window open and click the Play button again at the appropriate time.

If you don't have Flash or Javascript, and want to add it to your machine, please visit BBC Webwise for instructions on how to enable Javascript and/or install Flash:

BBC Webwise - Javascript

BBC Webwise - Flash

The data contained within Learning Zone Broadband Class Clips can be accessed in a variety of different data serialisations, the fundamental reasoning behind this lies in our belief in linked data. Please note that we continue to work on this facility and minor changes and improvements will continue to be posted for some time.

The serialisations we presently offer are for: XML, JSON, YAML, INI, CSV, ATOM, RSS 2.0 and plain text.

These alternative views of the resource can be accessed by constructing particular URLs, in general the desired format is added in the form of an extension to the URL, so without an extension the standard HTML version is returned, with an extension, such as .xml the XML version is returned. So to access the data about a particular clip you could construct a URL in the form:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/<clip_number><.extension>

Replacing the <clip_number> text with the number of the clip you are interested in retrieving data about. Replace the <.extension> with one of the values indicated below:

• .html
• .xml
• .json
• .yaml
• .ini
• .text
• .csv
• .rss
• .atom

So for example:

HTML output for clip number 346

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/346.html

XML output for clip number 346

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/346.xml

CSV output for clip number 346

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/346.csv

Note the Content-Type returned for a CSV file is text/csv, if you have Microsoft Excel installed it is likely your browser will prompt you to open the file using Excel. Excel will interpret the age range field as a date because of its format, e.g. 7 - 11 is taken to be the 7^th

JSON output for clip number 19

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/19.json

Note the Content-Type returned for a JSON file is application/json, it is likely your browser will prompt you to download the file, rather than displaying it within the browser.

YAML output for clip number 19

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/00019.yaml

Note the Content-Type returned for a YAML file is application/x-yaml, it is likely your browser will prompt you to download the file, rather than displaying it within the browser. Note in this example we have prefixed the clip number with several 0 (zero) characters, this is acceptable, clip numbers are up to five characters in length.

ini output for clip number 46

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/046.ini

text output for clip number 46

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/046.text

ATOM output for clip number 46

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/046.atom

RSS output for clip number 46

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/046.rss

CSV output for clip number 46

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/046.csv

Browsing and Searching

This technique of appending an extension can also be applied to the results of searching and browsing queries against the Learning Zone Broadband resource. The URLs in these cases are a little more complex because they contain information about the subjects, topics, keywords, etc, you are interested in.

For search related queries you should construct a URL in the form:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/<keywords><.extension>

Where again the <.extension> with one of the values indicated above (.xml, .yaml, etc). The <keywords> section can be either a single keyword or multiple keywords separated by periods (full stops). If you want to search on a key-phrase then join the words together with plus (+) symbols.

The scope of the search can be restricted to either Primary or Secondary results by using URLs in the form:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/<keywords>/all/all/primary<.extension>

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/<keywords>/all/all/secondary<.extension>

It can be further restricted to particular subjects and topic results by using URLs in the form:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/<keywords>/<topic>/<subject>/<level><.extension>

Some search examples should make this clear:

To search for all clips tagged with the keyword car you would construct a URL thus:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/car

To return search as XML you would append .xml on the end of the URL thus:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/car.xml

To return search as YAML you would append .yaml on the end of the URL thus:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/car.yaml

To return search as RSS you would append .rss on the end of the URL thus:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/car.rss

Again noting the Content-Type returned for a YAML file is application/x-yaml, it is likely your browser will prompt you to download the file, rather than displaying it within the browser.

To search for all primary clips with the keyword car:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/car/all/all/primary

To do the same search for all secondary clips:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/car/all/all/secondary

To do the same search for all secondary clips that are listed within the physics subject:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/car/all/physics/secondary

To do the same search for all secondary clips that are listed within the physics subject and waves topic:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/car/waves/physics/secondary

If we wished to search for all clips tagged with the keywords car and transport and return the result as XML we would use the following URL

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/car.transport.xml

If we wished to search for all clips tagged with the keyword car and the key-phrase transport services and return the result as HTML we would use the following URL

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/car.transport+services

To return the above query as plain text we would use the following URL:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/car.transport+services.text

To return the above query as an ATOM feed we would use the following URL:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/car.transport+services.atom

Returning the results of browsing the data is handled in much the same fashion, with the values for the level (primary, secondary, further) and subjects and topics forming the URL. The URLs can take several forms as outlined below:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/<level><.extension>

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/<level>/<subject><.extension>

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/<level>/<subject>/<topic><.extension>

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/<subject>/<topic><.extension>

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/<subject><.extension>

Once again the <.extension> can take one of the values we have shown before and if it is missing then the default HTML version is returned. The simplest method of illustrating the format of the URLs above is to provide some examples:

To return all the primary clips within the Learning Zone Broadband resource, use the following URL:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/primary

To return data in the JSON format, append .json to the end thus:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/primary.json

To return an RSS feed, append .rss to the end thus:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/primary.rss

To return all the primary history clips within the Learning Zone Broadband resource, use the following URL:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/primary/history

To return data as plain text, append .text to the end thus:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/primary/history.text

To further amend the query to only return the vikings topic, add to the URL thus:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/primary/history/vikings.text

It is also possible to browse for subjects and topics without specifying a particular level, so the following URL

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/all/geography

...will return all the resources have the subject geography, including all primary, secondary and further education material.

It is possible to append a topic query onto URLs such as the one above, so to browse for all geography assets with a topic selection of rivers you would request:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/all/geography/rivers

Once again if we wanted to return data as XML you would need to add .xml to the end of the URL:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/all/geography/rivers.xml

Pagination of output

The default for queries returned in formats other than HTML is to display all the results in a single page of data. This can obviously become quite large for some queries. If you would like to limit the number of results displayed and paginate the output then you will need to add a query string to the end of the URL you are requesting. The query string describes the number of results you want per page and the page you want to view. It takes the following form:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/<request>?pagesize=<results per page>&page=<page number>

Where <request> is your request in the formats described above, for example /search/car,transport.yaml. The <results per page> variable should be an integer number used to describe how many results you want returned on each page of output and <page number> should again be an integer from one describing the page of results you want to view. So for example if you wanted to search for all clips tagged with the keywords car and transport, return the data as XML and limit each page to three results and display the first page of the results you would construct the following URL:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/car.transport.xml?pagesize=3&page=1

To view the second page you would query:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/car.transport.xml?pagesize=3&page=2

...and so on.

Additional resource serialisations

In addition to the data queries described above it is possible to return the assets associated with an individual clip through suitably constructed URLs, in all the URLs illustrated below you should replace <clip number> with the clip number of the resource you are interested in. To return the video assets associated with a given clip you will need to use URLs in the following patterns:

Broadband RealMedia

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/<clip number>.bb.rm

Broadband Windows Media

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/<clip number>.bb.wmv

Narrowband RealMedia

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/<clip number>.nb.rm

Narrowband Windows Media

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/<clip number>.nb.wmv

BBC Flash video player

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/<clip number>.flv

You should note for the RealMedia and Windows Media URLs the actual data returned is the appropriate meta file pointing to the video resource, which is held on our servers and streamed to your computer.

The image assets associated with resources are also available at the following URLs

Preview image

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/<clip number>.preview.jpg

Thumbnail image

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/<clip number>.thumb.jpg

More detailed error messages can be found by right clicking on the player and selecting the copy error message option. You can then send that error to us via our feeback page and we will try to assist where we can.

A tool to test the connectivity to a flash media server is available from the FlashComGuru website. Please note that the BBC is not responsible for the content of external websites. The testing tool can be found here: http://www.flashcomguru.com/apps/port_test/index.cfm