In the event of a campus closure or if you just need to reach students who can’t come to campus, you can live stream your class. By streaming your classes with Echo360, students can participate fully in live classes, even ask questions and answer polls. The new live attendance feature will let you know who is participating remotely and remote student engagement will show up in your instructor analytics, just as it does for students who attend in person.

You can live stream using Universal Capture on any Mac or PC computer, as well as Echo360’s Pro and Pod capture appliances. If you would like to live stream your already scheduled course, simply ask your Echo360 administrator to update your capture schedule to include live streaming.

In the event of a full campus closure, keep in mind that live streaming alone might not be your best option as students return home to many different time zones and may not have stable internet access. In such cases, providing both live streaming and on-demand playback options may be more beneficial for your students.

Read how Iowa State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine uses Echo 360 for blended learning.

Managing Questions in Live Streamed Classes

Keep in mind that viewers' comments, questions, and discussion posts can be responded to in real-time during the live class/event. For this reason, you may want to have a teaching assistant, ace student, or other minion monitor the Questions panel for questions or comments from participants, and either answer them immediately in the panel or pass them on to the presenter/instructor to address during the live class as appropriate. See Monitoring and Managing Discussion/Q&A Posts for more information.

How to Know if Students are Watching

The new Live Attendance feature, detailed on the Viewing Live Streamed Classes page, allows you to see a real-time count and list of users actively watching a live stream. The analytics that are gathered from live streams are available after the live stream has finished. For more information on remote engagement, see Definitions of Analytics Data Metrics, Course Analytics Overview, and Course Analytics Class Data.

Polling in Live Streamed Classes

Interactive Activity slides or Polling Questions are used to engage the student regarding specific topics and concepts. Inserting interactive slides within a Presentation will trigger learning moments with your students and increase overall participation during class. See Working with Slides and Presentations for more information.

The following reference cards can also be downloaded as a PDF here.