Create a Virtual Class
This fantastic tool enables educators to present and discuss video content with their class remotely.
Educators can choose the video content they want to present and control playback for students. The built-in chat box adds a great collaborative tool, enabling two-way communication between educators and students.
Planet eStream Virtual Classes can also be embedded into other learning platforms and setup within Microsoft Teams.
Supporting Video Courses:
Safely Distribute YouTube Content
During times of enforced remote learning, concerns around students accessing resources via YouTube persist, especially given that they are not necessarily protected by your organisation’s security and filtering systems whilst studying at home.
Planet eStream offers a secure solution to this issue by providing access to high quality educational TV and radio resources, available for use legitimately under the terms of your ERA licence. There is also a really useful YouTube embed tool, enabling teachers to continue to use selected content that may only be available on YouTube, whilst ensuring that delivery to students is more secure and controlled via your eStream platform.
Supporting Video Courses:
The use of Planet eStream to deliver remote learning is becoming part of the new normal. As a technology manager within our trust, I have long been aware of both the power and technology available within the platform. The current situation (COVID-19) has seen a huge increase for the need to deliver remote learning that is both meaningful and engaging. Teaching staff requests for lesson recording support have increased tenfold; without a platform such as Planet eStream, our technology support staff would have been overwhelmed with work, thus slowing down the output of content to students.
However, our teachers are now recording and uploading engaging and powerful lessons to our eStream platform. Importantly this content can then be shared safely with our students, both ensuring safeguarding and protecting the intellectual property of the respective lessons.
In summary we have found the following tools to be super useful at this time:
- Remote uploading
- Creating recordings – teachers can record both a camera feed alongside their teaching material e.g. PowerPoint
- Creating video-based quizzes
In coming weeks we are also moving from our current locally hosted Planet eStream platform to the cloud based solution. With this comes new features, such as the virtual classroom which we can’t wait to pilot.
Iain McKeown - Creative and Media at Macmillan Academy, Part of the Endeavour Academies Trust