Teacher Help

How do I copy a lesson?

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Copy a Lesson

  1. Sign in as a teacher and open the course that contains the lesson.
  2. Open the lesson's three-dot action menu and select Copy Lesson.
  3. Enter a Lesson Name for the copy.
  4. Choose a Destination Course. You can copy into the same course or another course in your account.
  5. Select Copy and wait for the lesson and its assets to finish copying.
  6. Open the destination course to find and edit your copied lesson.

Duplicating an Item and Copying a Lesson

Duplicate in the lesson editor creates another question or media element within the same lesson. The new item initially uses the same stored media files as the original; duplicating the item does not create separate copies of those assets. This also applies when you duplicate checked items in the reordering view.

If you later edit media that is shared by several items, supported media editors offer a choice when you save:

  • Overwrite updates the shared asset, affecting the other items that use it.
  • Create New saves a separate version for the item you are editing, leaving the other items' asset unchanged.

This choice appears when saving changes to shared media, not when you first duplicate the item.

Copy Lesson in the course's lesson list creates a separate lesson and independent copies of the assets it currently uses. If several items use the same asset, they can share the copied asset within the new lesson; they no longer use the original lesson's file.

Why Can the Copy Have Fewer Assets?

The Assets total in the lesson list counts stored assets associated with that lesson, including files that are no longer used in its current content. It does not count pages or just the media you can see in the lesson.

Deleting a question, section, or media element from the lesson editor does not permanently delete its underlying media files. Those files remain in storage. If no remaining lesson item uses a file, that file is detached: it is still associated with the lesson and included in the asset total, but is no longer part of the lesson content.

Copying a lesson copies only the assets used by its current content. Detached assets stay with the original and are not copied. This means the copy can have the same pages and content but a smaller asset total.

For example, a lesson with eight video items could show nine video assets if an older, removed video is still stored. Its copy would contain the eight videos currently used. That difference alone does not mean a video is missing from the copy.

One asset can also be used in several places in a lesson, so the number of media elements does not always match the number of distinct assets.

Permanently Delete Detached Assets

You can remove unwanted files through the Media Manager, also called the Media Library. Removing an item from the lesson editor and permanently deleting its stored file are separate actions.

  1. Open Media in the sidebar and choose Teacher Uploads.
  2. Expand the course and lesson folders to find the file. Use the preview or download button to check it, and confirm that you no longer need it in the lesson.
  3. Select the file's delete button and review the deletion details, including any attached text files.
  4. Select Delete Media to permanently remove it.

Permanent deletion cannot be undone. A file may be used by more than one item in a lesson. Deleting a file that is still in use will make it unavailable to those items, so do not delete files solely to make asset totals match.

For more details, see how to use the Media Library.

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