July 2021

Summer 2021 Resilience – Week 4

The goal of the Smeal Academy is to equip everyone with best practices and strategies for teaching, learning, and technology to ensure the Smeal community is prepared to respond to the unique teaching challenges of this time. Throughout the summer, we will be sending emails with practical tips and information, providing live sessions, and holding virtual consultations.

Last week we discussed reshaping your Fall semester. This week, we share resources that can help you utilize Kaltura for your video storage and sharing needs.

Who Moved My Zoom?

Penn State is urging you to do a “Summer Clean Up” of Zoom storage. This announcement reflects a shift in the University’s video storage and delivery policy away from Zoom and towards Kaltura. Recording in Zoom is still recommended.

Accompanying the request to delete unused recordings from Zoom will be other changes coming this Fall which could change workflows related to sharing video content with students.

To ease the transition from Zoom to Kaltura for video storage and delivery we’ve provided an overview of Kaltura and its integration with Canvas below. We will also be conducting a “Who Moved My Zoom?” Smeal Faculty Academy session in the near future to discuss some of the Fall changes and updated best practices in more detail.

What Is Kaltura?

Kaltura is Penn State’s tool for storing, publishing and streaming media. It’s cloud based and works in conjunction with Zoom and Canvas to help incorporate digital content into coursework easily and seamlessly. The Penn State Web site that hosts Kaltura is named Mediaspace – so you may read articles that mention it.

Why Zoom Video Storage is Transitioning to Kaltura

• Zoom storage is expensive. Penn State needs to reduce our costs.
• Zoom videos are already automatically transferred to Kaltura for storage/delivery.
• Providing captions to videos is easier in Kaltura.
• You can structure your Kaltura videos into Playlists for easy access.
• You can easily integrate your videos and Playlists into Canvas.
• You can view robust viewer analytics on Kaltura videos.

How Zoom and Kaltura Work Together

• Video content recorded in Zoom is automatically stored in Kaltura as well.
• While Kaltura does have a tool to record video, it is not an optimal recording solution. We recommend recording videos using Zoom then using Kaltura to publish, store, and deliver video content through its seamless integration with Canvas.

How to Access Kaltura

• You can go to the Kaltura Web Site.
• You can access it directly at the Mediaspace Web Site.
• You can also view your Kaltura videos from Canvas by clicking the “My Media” option on your Canvas Main Navigation.

How to Locate and Organize Your Kaltura Videos

1. Locate Kaltura Videos
   Once you have logged into Kaltura or opened My Media in Canvas, you can search by keywords in Kaltura’s search functionality, or use search Filters to narrow your results.
2. Organize Kaltura Videos
   Videos can be organized into Playlists (video collections in a list viewable by anyone) and Channels (video collections shared with specific users).
3. Access Kaltura Analytics
   Instructors can view robust Kaltura analytics for both stand-alone videos embedded into course content as well as Course Media Galleries. These analytics can provide useful insights using metrics such as Plays, Minutes Viewed, and Completion Rate, to name a few. This data can be used to improve future content offerings, identify content that is under-utilized by students, and provide a means to hold students accountable for watching required content.
4. Share Your Kaltura Videos in Canvas
   Rich integrations between the Canvas and Kaltura platforms streamline delivering video content to students. These integrations eliminate the need to log into multiple systems to find and deliver videos, reduce the chance of errors caused by copying long links or embed code, and provide the assurance that security, access, and analytics are at optimum levels.Videos can be organized within Canvas using the Course Media Gallery option. Each Canvas course contains a “hidden” Course Media Gallery. It must be activated by the instructor or other course editor within Canvas to be used. Using the Course Media Gallery ensures that analytics will capture individual student activity and that video permissions are set to allow students in your course to view video content.You can also embed individual videos into Canvas pages, announcements, quizzes, etc.

Upcoming Live Sessions

Tips of the Week

Resources

Summer 2021 Readiness – Week 3

The goal of the Smeal Academy is to equip everyone with best practices and strategies for teaching, learning, and technology to ensure the Smeal community is prepared to respond to the unique teaching challenges of this time. Throughout the summer, we will be sending emails with practical tips and information, providing live sessions, and holding virtual consultations.

Last week we discussed the Lessons Learned from the pandemic. This week, we share resources that can help you look to the Fall and how you will reshape your courses to meet the demands of students, and the need to keep them engaged. During your teaching in the last year and a half, you may have started using technologies you never used before.

Collaborative Technologies

You may have used collaborative technologies like discussion boards, slides, notes, polls, whiteboards, collaborative documents, Zoom chat features, and videos as a way of engaging students in constructing their understanding of your content. You may be thinking about your Fall courses and wondering how you can take the best of what you did and mix it with your teaching methods used before the pandemic. Students often want to use their technologies in the classroom, anyway, so why not leverage their tech and put it to work?! Consider having students bring their devices and connect to some of these collaborative technologies while engaged in your face-to-face teaching.

Informal Course Communications

Using Zoom chat and discussion boards or other technologies that capture students’ responses has become a new way for students to connect with you and each other. You may have found in some classes that you were challenged to get students to “unmute” and be engaged. We find that at times students are as unlikely to unmute and share ideas in virtual classrooms as in-person students are to raise their hand in a live lecture. However, the chat stream may have been very busy essentially forming something we call the “backchannel.” This channel permitted you to engage in less formal ways. Students may have felt it was less risky to answer a question in the chat interactions. You can continue to capitalize on this channel in the coming year if it aligns with your course and student needs. When used purposefully and with inclusive and respectful communication, backchannels can offer an important communication mode for students to interact with course content, the instructor, and each other.

Breakout Rooms

During the pandemic, if you wanted to facilitate small groups, you may have turned to using breakout rooms for collaboration between students. You may have used breakout rooms to ask students information about their prior knowledge, to have them work on problems or cases, or to wrap up and identify points of interest or confusion. You can continue to use these tools in your face-to-face learning to garner the benefits of the additional tools that came along with them, like whiteboards, screen sharing, and internet searching. In socially distanced, mixed audiences and fully face-to-face classrooms, a student can put on headphones and get to work together on meaningful activities. You might be surprised to find them doing this even outside the classroom if you leave your digital space open to students.

Come to this week’s Smeal Academy webinar to learn more about ways to reshape your courses this fall.

Resources

Glantz, E., Gamrat, C., Lenze, L., & Bardzell, J. (2021, March 16). Improved Student Engagement in Higher Education’s Next Normal. EDUCAUSE Review.

Current News

Upcoming Live Sessions

Tips of the Week

Resources