Live streaming has become an essential way to maximize the impact of classroom lectures. Colleges and universities are finding that with the right live streaming platform‚ one that's easy to use and has flexible technology solutions educators can engage students virtually.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, solutions like Zoom, Teams, or Skype worked as stop-gap measures, but even now, they simply don't provide the live streaming platform tools necessary for creating meaningful learning experiences.
The Live Streaming Features That You Need for Higher Ed
When looking for the right live streaming platform, here are key areas that you want to keep in mind.
Focus on the Audience, Not Technology
There's nothing worse than low-quality streams, hard-to-hear audio, or watching educators struggle with the technology. A poor streaming experience disrupts the educational and learning environments. Every second that you spend managing the platform is time away from connecting with your audience.
You need an easy-to-use platform with rock-solid infrastructure to optimize the experience. It should have a simplified workflow and include monitoring of the live stream to automatically probe for any disruptions.
Keep Your Audience Engaged
While relevant and informative content will be essential, you also need diverse tools to keep your learners engaged. According to a study cited by the National Institutes of Health, between 40% and 59% of university students say that they're bored, which is not the best environment for impactful learning.
Look for a live streaming platform that has interactive tools to keep your students engaged. Feature sets should make it simple to incorporate live polls and audience discussions in hybrid environments. Interactivity is essential to student engagement, and study after study shows that engagement correlates to student learning, success, motivation, and retention.
You also want low-latency streams that make for real-time and crystal-clear streams to thousands of simultaneous users.
Serve Diverse Audiences
As many as 20,000 deaf or hard-of-hearing students attend post-secondary educational institutions, and instructors are responsible for accommodating these students. A critical feature for your streaming platform will be automated captioning.
Captioning can also help overcome a potential language barrier. For example, more than 1 million foreign-born students are enrolled in US colleges and universities from over 200 different countries. Many have learned English as a second language, and captioning helps provide additional context to aid learning.
Secure Your Stream
Security is essential. Lance Gharavi, a professor at Arizona State University, found that out firsthand when he was using Zoom for a class of 150 students, and a lack of control over displays enabled a user to display pornographic videos. Other universities have also reported so-called "video bombing" where students or hackers intentionally disrupt live streams to cause mischief.
Educators need a platform that protects their streams from outside interference, with strict security controls and authentication for users.
How the Warpwire Platform Powers Higher Ed
The Warpwire platform has everything that you need to build, power, and create dynamic and engaging live presentations.
Secure, Ultra-Low Latency Streams
Warpwire delivers crystal-clear, secure live streams and can accommodate thousands of simultaneous users. Ultra-low latency provides a consistent streaming experience and enables real-time experiences, such as live polling and real-time interactivity.
It also keeps students focused and engaged while relieving the burden on instructors to worry about the quality or stability of the stream. Proactive health checks monitor the stream in real time and provide automated alerts in case of potential disruptions. You can segment access to keep your content secure, sharing only what you want with the intended audience at the times that you prefer.
Interactive Tools for Engagement
Students can experience the same content and level of engagement, whether they are viewing a stream online or experiencing a presentation in person or in a hybrid environment. Group chat, discussions, and the ability to share material to augment presentations make it a more robust learning experience. A blended, synchronous environment with multiple levels of engagement creates more active learning.
Simple to Use
One benefit of using Warpwire is the streamlined startup. You can go from offline to live in seconds with an easy-to-use interface that includes everything that you need to manage your assets and breeze through presentations. The purpose-built design creates the optimal experience for instructors and learners.
Automated, Accurate Captioning
Warpwire provides highly accurate, machine-generated, automated closed captioning to serve diverse audiences. For asynchronous learners, it has searchable closed captions on video content that are fully editable to fine-tune your presentation. You can also attach multiple files to a video asset, enabling multi-language support if needed.
Easy Content Creation and Management
Warpwire makes it easy to capture, organize, and share your educational videos. Whether you are live streaming or creating an on-demand program, with a browser-based system, you can import video assets or record videos from webcams, mobile devices, or desktops. You can also record content on your computer screen, webcam, and mobile devices simultaneously, capturing and playing back content from up to four different sources at once. Content can be tagged for easy retrieval, even amid vast libraries.
Comprehensive Analytics
You get comprehensive analytics that goes beyond simple viewer counts. Your online dashboard captures user engagement, with precise analytics for each student.
Deliver High-Quality Live Streams with Warpwire
Warpwire is trusted by 3,500 educational institutions nationwide and integrates seamlessly with your favorite AV providers and association management systems.
See how easy it is to deliver higher ed live streams with Warpwire Live. The learning technology provides real-time, low-latency virtual attendee experiences. Warpwire makes it easy to capture and manage video within learning environments and delivers insight into how the communities engage with the content. Book a demo now!
