Overview
When a class is opened from the Classes list page, you enter what is known as a interactive Classroom. There are many features inside of the Class, a media panel that can hold various sources such as a video (a recording of yourself), presentation, student engagement tools, and a video player with accessible features for closed captions and other various options. Refer to the sample image below with the defined sections and descriptions.
Classroom Player
- Top features active learning tools, known as the Classroom Toolbar to foster student engagement.
- Middle displays your video sources and presentation (if added to the class).
- Bottom features a standard video player with options to control playback quality/speed, apply CC, and more.
Note: The Classroom Toolbar (top-right) differs slightly in appearance for instructors and students, view an image of the similarities and differences. Students have additional icons Notes and a Bookmark icon, instructors do not. Notes and Bookmarks are time-stamped to the locations where students write them.
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Video Player in a Course
(click the image to enlarge)
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Classroom Player Navigation of the Tools and Interface
The top bar of the Classroom allows your students to interact with the media being presented to them. View the icons and descriptions below to learn more about the Classroom Player (e.g., top, middle, bottom) starting from left to right.
Classroom Toolbar: Top
Title of Class and Date of Class (if applicable), the same as seen on the Class List page
.
Note: If your classes are scheduled, the class name will be the same name for all scheduled captures. Renaming your class in your Echo360 course helps students find what they need to watch or participate in, just click the pencil icon
to the right of the class name.
We recommend having a short descriptive title, such as the content being covered in your lecture.
Discussion: Click the icon to open the Q&A (Discussion panel) to view and respond to any questions or comments made.
Q&A New Question: Click the icon to ask a new question to the class, this opens the panel to the right panel of your screen.
Note: You can view all questions/comments in a course by clicking the Q&A tab from the Instructor Dashboard.
Confusion Flag: Displays the number of confusing segments that students have flagged in either the recording or presentation (or both).
Note: You can see what students found confusing inside the Analytics dashboard under Engagement.
Transcript: Click to display transcript (only displays if the video has been transcribed), as the video plays the transcripts follows in sync to the audio being spoken.
Note: Students can search and read along with the transcript as they watch the video, it is essential that your transcript has been edited for accuracy to meet ADA Compliance.
Classroom List: Click to exit the class, all classes in the course are listed, allowing you to open another class without exiting the classroom player.
Exit the Classroom Player: In the upper-right corner, click on the name of your course to exit the current classroom.
Classroom Player: Middle
The middle of the player will display the media published to the class this can be a video, presentation, and yourself (if applicable). You can swap between the media being presented simply by clicking on it making it the primary screen, hovering over any media will give you options to open it in full screen or close the window.
Full-Screen (left) and Close Window (right) icons. Hover over the media you want, the full screen and close icon will display in the top-right of the media.
Note: If you close a window, you can reopen it, and click the "Sources" button (bottom-right) of the Classroom Player.
Presentation controls: When a presentation has been uploaded to a class, these options display when hovering over the window.
- From the top-middle: This allows instructors to view all slides, and hide a slide.
- Middle left and right arrows: allow you to switch from the previous slide to the next slide.
- The bottom toolbar provides controls for managing your polls or presenting during class.
Classroom Playback Bar: Bottom
The bottom of the player displays standard video player controls (bottom-left), sources, CC (closed captions), settings to change the playback quality or speed, and the layout of how the media displays found in the bottom-right of the player.
NOTE: The video player will always remember where you left off if you exit the virtual classroom. you can use the Rewind and forward controls to go back or forward, click the play head to the location of where you want to resume watching, or start the recording from the beginning.
Play and Pause control: This is a standard play/pause button. The player will remember where you left off once you have started watching a video or participated in poll.
Rewind and forward controls: The playback controls include the fast forward, and rewind. When you click either button it will to move through 10 seconds at a time, in either direction.
Note: You can also click anywhere on a location in the playback bar to move to that location.
Time/Duration of media: On the left, is the video timestamp of where you are in the video found immediately to the right of the playback controls. On the right, is the duration of the media.
Note: For video views to be accurate, students must view the video in its entirety.
Video Heatmap: The video view heatmap button (bottom-right of the playback bar, next to the volume icon) toggle it on/off and provides a graphical overlay on a video allowing instructors to see all portions of the video watched most.
Volume control: Adjust the volume or mute the audio. Click to move the slider up or down to adjust volume.
Note: To mute/unmute click the volume icon once.
Sources button. Turn on/off video(s) or presentation slides, this depends on what you have published to the class. If you recorded multiple video sources, (e.g., screen, webcam, document camera, etc.), you will see Video 1 and Video 2, if you have a Presentation added to the class you will see Slides.
Note: If you close a media window, clicking the Sources button will display previously closed media.
Closed Captioning (CC): Click this button to turn on captions for the video, the button is greyed out if it’s not available.
Note: If a Closed Caption is available the "CC" button will clickable and provide the viewer options to change the text size, contrast, location, and alignment, of how they want the closed captions displayed as they playback the video. Before enabling Closed Captions, it is essential that your transcript meets ADA Compliance.
Options (gear icon): Click the button to change the video quality and playback speed.
Quality: Allows the ability to switch to a lower quality stream might be helpful when there is a poor internet connection.
Speed: Allows variable speed playback, choose from the lowest .5x to the highest speed 2x.
Layout button: This gives users different options for laying out the media sources within the Classroom video player. Just click the button and choose your preferred view.
Note: The media panels can be toggled between picture-in-picture, tiled, or side-by-side in the Classroom player.