Classroom webcam/audio capture (Coronavirus contingency)

[BJG]

I've been asked to recommend hardware (preferably inexpensive) to be used in classrooms to capture video/audio within the room for the benefit of students who might end up in isolation. Any general favourites/recommendations...?

[mikeprice]

As an aside - might be an idea to check that someone has checked the unions are OK with this before you spend any time on it

 

Teachers can get very jumpy about being filmed in the classroom - it is almost as if they don;t trust SMT to not use it for getting round observation guidelines!

 

This has come up before - and I have personal experience of it

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

Oh - and - do you want the screen to be captured as well???

[PlantHead]

We use Planet eStream

Very easy to upload and share and all online, so it can be logged into from anywhere

[unixman_again]

We use self hosted Medial - the screen capture is teacher proof - a go and a stop button, followed by a three field form.

[aguacate]

I read on a forum about teachers using loom for lesson recording, we use facetime for real time video but this obviously doesn't scale and both parties need an apple device

[mikeprice]

I suppose it does depend on whether you want it to be real time - or recorded - or both

[chazzy2501]

I was going to get the staff to use Microsoft Teams and point their laptop at themselves.

[SamanthaD]

Not sure how well this would work for an interactive session. We use lecture capture extensively recording screen content and audio, but this is only really useful for lectures, not the usual secondary school style teaching where you set exercises, work through problems, check understanding etc.

 

I think the easiest way would be publish any digital resources ahead of the lesson (PPT's, .docs, PDF's etc) and have the students join in on a Skype call. Providing the students have a device they can view the resources, hear the lesson, be asked questions and ask questions back.

[tompegrum]

we have been looking at screen recording a teachers laptop along with audio and then uploading this to stream, as well as using teams to live stream a lesson. we are currently using salamander to make classrooms within teams from sims.

[paulkerton]

www.screencastify.com

Free but limited to 5 minutes at a time.

[Spookyville]

Anyone else out there using Loom for staff to capture and record? We are starting to use it with our partial reopening from today but bombarded with various issues with it today! Just wondering what other experiences of it are out there....

[SamanthaD]

OBS will happily record and stream if you need it, free to use and highly regarded in the gaming community.

 

Regarding the Unions we have a document that specifically says recordings will not be used for competency assessment, our academics seem happy with it.

[EddyAllen]

Using a separate laptop and PC setup using a MS Teams meeting is what I've found works best. We have a separate laptop set up in the middle of the classroom facing the whiteboard so that no children are visible on the stream. We then connected a large display to the laptop so that the teacher can easily see all of the students in the meeting without having to strain their eyes and move towards the laptop (Also louder sound). All of the children make sure they are muted to prevent feedback.

 

Recording can be a bit more complicated and seems to be a necessary evil for people unable to attend the meeting or with poor internet connections. You would think that "Record Meeting" would be an easy fix for this, however when you record a meeting on Teams it will record EVERYONE in the meeting EVEN if you have pinned the person that you want to see. We didn't really want videos of children published and seeing writing on a whiteboard in a 9x9 is like putting on a wet sock. As such, we had to get creative...

 

For anyone interested this is how we have done it;

 

Firstly, you will need two Teams accounts.

Primary account sets up the meeting as normal.

Secondary Teams account is invited to and joins the meeting.

Secondary Teams account then pins primary account so that they can only see the Teacher.

Use OBS to record a screen area of the Teams Window of the Secondary account.

 

You should then be able to upload the lesson to Microsoft Stream (keeps things safeguarding simple by using one ecosystem) while having a fully interactive lesson (not possible with a live event) but with no pupils shown.

[SamanthaD]

I think Teams will soon be releasing NDI streams for participants, so you could just have the teacher feed recorded as its own source in OBS (with the NDI plugin)