2021 Echo360
Community Conference

Fred Singer, CEO of Echo360 looks at the future of higher education through the lessons of the pandemic (and a little bit of 80’s combat rock) to plan a course forward and look at how technology can help create more effective and engaging learning experiences. Fred draws on his experience leading other industries through digital transformations as well as his leadership at Echo360 to set the tone for the next two days of presentations, practices, and discussion.

One of the key motivations for higher education institutions to incorporate lecture recording in their teaching was that of mainstreaming accessibility. By allowing all students the opportunity to review lectures, we hope to reduce penalties for unavoidable absences and alleviate barriers to higher education to groups with learning adjustments and disabilities. This presentation will describe a research conducted before, during and after the Covid19 pandemic to explore whether the pandemic has supported the use of lecture recording for widening participation.

A discussion of how Augusta University leverages the Echo360 platform to support its students, focusing on key topics of:

• Back to basics: classic lecture capture and its increasing relevance for inclusive instruction
• ASR – connecting students with the content they need
• Removing barriers: harnessing combined powers of LMS, Lecture Capture and Web Conferencing through integrations for Brightspace, Echo360 and Zoom

Based on a current study for the National SCIENCE Foundation courses at several universities will use Echo360 to test to what degree the availability of an anonymous backchannel leads to increased volume and breadth of in-class inquiry. Existing Echo360 sites are invited to participate. Selected course instructors will receive an honorarium in exchange for their participation.

COVID forced a sudden pivot to online teaching and learning, which was challenging for students and instructors alike. But there have been bright spots. In particular, instructors have had to learn and adopt principles of accessibility, and students have been able to learn from wherever they are. We should not allow these bright spots to fade. We know students prefer to learn in person but want the option to learn remotely when needed, because of illness, work, family commitments, weather and a long list of other things. So when we imagine the return to campus post-COVID, we should not abandon all the ways we've learned to add flexibility. Echo360 is one tool that provides flexibility for students, while also offering diverse ways for students to engage. It is institutionally supported at McMaster, which means there is not additional cost to students, and it requires minimal time and energy investment by instructors. In this pre-COVID study, we found that given the opportunity to learn in class or virtually from week to week, most students came to class most of the time. But across two courses — one skills-based and one content-based — there was no significant difference in Echo360 engagement scores or adjusted final grades (adjusted to remove the contribution of the engagement score) between in class dominant and online dominant learners. There was, however, a strong correlation between their engagement scores and adjusted final grades. This means students who engaged in their learning through Echo360 by following the lectures and doing polling activities succeeded in both courses regardless of how they participated. This provides strong evidence that maintaining flexibility for students will help them succeed, and there has never been a more important time to be flexible. I would like to co-present with my student partner, Stefan Mladjenovic.