The Insider’s Secrets to Confident Capture: Scheduling and Monitoring
The Echo360 On-Air Light is Visual Cue that Recordings are Happening as Planned
It takes a lot of confidence to be a teacher. (Engaging the disengaged, and the ability to explain something to a huge class and have them retain it!) When you’re standing in front of a full classroom and using lecture capture, you shouldn’t have to worry about your tech tools. With Echo360, you simply teach as you always do, confident that the system has your back, largely due to automated scheduling and monitoring.
Let’s look at scheduling first. Scheduling allows tech staff to set up captures for every Echo360 software or hardware enabled classroom across campus. Ten rooms? No problem. 350 rooms? Even better. That’s because all that instruction is recorded without any tech staff visiting a classroom or instructors fussing to turn on a recording. Capture happens round-the-clock, hassle free. Your tech staff can be tipping back a cold one.
Back to reality….we all know that technology glitches happen. That’s where monitoring comes into play – its like the insurance policy for lecture capture.
On a macro level, Echo360 lets administrators log into a dashboard that shows all of the rooms that are capturing in one display—security cam style. If there is a noticeable issue, the administrator can check that device in a micro view and monitor and resolve any issues remotely within the same interface.
In the classroom, SafeCapture HD has a light on the front to notify the instructor when it is capturing (red), paused (blinking yellow), and when there is one minute remaining. These can be integrated with the classroom control system or Crestron panel, enabling the instructor to pause, resume or extend captures as well as change input feeds.
Not enough? The nifty, first-of-its-kind, on-air light gives the instructor and even the class a visual clue as to the state of the recording. Picture a light at the classroom podium, conveniently placed within the instructor’s field of vision. It illuminates when recordings are in progress. Instructors can pause, resume or stop a recording by tapping the light. And it’s easy and affordable.
Stay confident
Even if there’s a network outage, you can trust that your lecture will still be successfully captured:
- If you use SafeCapture HD: The device will continue to capture courses at their scheduled times and store the files onboard its 250 GB hard drive. Once the network connection is restored, content is automatically uploaded for students without any additional administration. The SafeCapture HD’s onboard hard drive is built with even the longest network outages in mind, enabling you to preserve hours, days or even weeks of valuable content.
- If you use Classroom Capture: The podium computer will set aside 20 GB of space for the capture. Just as with SafeCapture HD, instructors can re-upload content as well.
Either way, if you lose connectivity before or during class, the device is already scheduled and it will start the capture regardless of the network’s status. Even if the instructor shuts down the capture machine, capture files are preserved and uploaded for students to review. Once the network is back up and running, Echo360 will automatically upload the captures that were stored.