Facilitating remote learning in education

facilittatingBefore COVID, most educational establishments were already using lecture capture, as well as experimenting with flipped classroom delivery, however the pandemic has made both teaching practices very much the norm. The mechanics of delivery have become more complex - it’s not just a case of using YouTube or Facebook. Lecture capture is exactly what it sounds like - recording classroom lectures as videos for students to review after the class. A flipped classroom teaching approach uses lecture capture to reverse the traditional learning environment: most of the ‘teaching’ happens outside of class, while the class is left for practical learning. During the pandemic, the ‘class’ element of learning was restricted, and remote learning was forcibly adopted. The market responded with a plethora of video recording and streaming products. Yet for these to be integrated efficiently into curriculum delivery, two other elements need to be considered: what Learning Management System (LMS) the education establishment is using and their Video Content Management System (VCMS). Most medium-large sized educational faculties these days use an LMS that is a SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) and cloud-based. Unlike YouTube or Facebook, a LMS gives an education establishment a secure framework. It’s a platform to house, deliver and track all training content. Popular LMS platforms in the UK include Moodle, Blackboard and Canvas. Prior to 2015, Moodle was by far the dominant platform, accounting for 90% of all new implementations for this market, but in recent years Canvas has made rapid progress1 . An LMS is typically designed to manage and track data. However, it cannot ingest video, organize video assets, or process videos to make them indexable and searchable. For these functions, you need a Video Content Management System (VCMS). These systems help manage and facilitate the delivery of one-to-many, on-demand video using internet protocols. The last piece of the video delivery jigsaw is an encoder. While it is possible to use a laptop and encoding software, education establishments require a more scalable solution. From an administrative point of view, managing a fleet of in-room laptops can at best be difficult. It can also quickly become prohibitive if the AV setup includes anything more than USB webcams and microphones. Epiphan has been particularly successful in the education market because it takes an appliance approach. For a busy teacher, a dedicated appliance is much easier to use and allows them to focus on the lecture, instead of the video capture technology. REMOTE LEARNING IN EDUCATION Creating a dedicated encoding appliance that is easy to use really helps streamline the video production process which makes it much easier for non-technical faculty staff create online content. If content creation is easy, universities and colleges are more likely to continue offering this after the pandemic when it is no longer a necessity.

90%

*presence of Moodle in the market, prior to 2015.