Maggie Miller, Communication Intern

Maggie Miller, Communication Intern

Supporting Student Learning Virtually Through Kaltura Capture

Dear Faculty,

This article was written by Maggie Miller, a communication intern for The Wheel. Maggie Miller is a senior at UC Davis studying Human Development and Psychology. She is interested in emotions and is committed to supporting children and adolescents as they heal from trauma. She will graduate in the spring and take some time off to travel before pursuing a PhD in Clinical Child Psychology.

Available via Aggie Video, Kaltura Capture allows UC Davis faculty to record, publish, and share content with students, research teams, and fellow instructors. Highly relevant to our campus-wide experiment in remote teaching this spring quarter, Aggie Video’s Kaltura Capture recording tool can help faculty document subject matter, present course content remotely, and thus enhance student engagement in remotely-taught and, eventually, face-to-face courses at UC Davis. 

Getting started with Kaltura Capture is straightforward. Once downloaded, Kaltura Capture enables faculty to start making recordings with just a couple of clicks. There are options to record the computer screen, the webcam, or both screen and webcam at the same time. Selecting “audio” ensures that the video will have sound, and all Kaltura Capture recordings will automatically be captioned using a free, machine-generated service (with about 85% accuracy). Recordings will be saved to the “My Media” page included in AggieVideo; from there, they can be managed, edited, and shared publicly or privately with relevant audiences. Kaltura Capture videos are reusable and easily published to Canvas by “embedding Kaltura media” on the intended page. For helpful tips, check out this knowledge base article “AggieVideo: Getting Started with Kaltura Capture.”

Select audio and recording settings on Kaltura Capture  Select audio and recording settings on Kaltura Capture



Dr. Margaret Merrill, Instructional Designer and Educational Technologist for Academic Technology Services (ATS) at UC Davis, works often with Kaltura Capture. She argues that this tool can benefit faculty as well as students by: 
  • Cultivating student agency
  • Enhancing student learning
  • Strengthening student-instructor relationships
Cultivating Student Agency

When students have more opportunities to make choices about how to engage with the material they are learning, they are more likely to understand the content more fully. A class using Kaltura Capture empowers students to decide how to engage with the material they are learning, thus increasing likelihood for better retention and understanding of class content. Dr. Merrill describes one way students can manage their own learning: “If you record a presentation by recording your screen and having PowerPoint slides in “slide show” mode, as you would during an actual presentation, Kaltura Capture automatically creates chapters for each slide, allowing your students to jump right to the slide whose content they need to review.” 

Viewers can jump to specific slides and choose how content appears on their screen Viewers can jump to specific slides and choose how content appears on their screen



Students can watch and rewatch published recordings, with options to pause, add closed captions, and speed up or slow down the video. If faculty have recorded both the screen and the webcam, viewers can use controls on their screen to decide whether to view the slides or the instructor in full-screen mode. Students could also choose to watch both slides and instructor displayed side-by-side, or to keep either one as an inset video. 

Viewers can select full screen, side-by-side, or inset video Viewers can select full screen, side-by-side, or inset video





This variety of viewing options creates an interactive learning environment that is accessible for all viewers with different abilities. The knowledge base article “AggieVideo: How to Set and Create a Presentation Recording with Kaltura Capture” provides more details on creating recordings in Kaltura Capture.

Enhancing student learning

Videos can enhance student learning in various ways. For example, faculty can explain tricky concepts, let students know virtually what’s coming up in class each week, or even record entire lectures. The Wheel article “The Value of Instructional Videos” highlights several benefits of using video to support student learning. These benefits include providing explanations of difficult concepts, allowing more time in class to apply concepts, and establishing connections to the real-world. 

Strengthening Student-Instructor Relationships

Dr. Merrill points out a highlight of working with Kaltura Capture: recordings can invite more interest and involvement from students. Seeing and hearing their instructor in a video students have elected to watch in their own time can feel like a more individualized, face-to-face interaction that would not likely take place in a large lecture class. Using video in this way can make instructors appear more relatable to students. To facilitate this deeper connection with students, instructors might consider recording short videos answering frequently asked questions or more conversational, weekly introduction videos to let students know what’s ahead in the course. 

To Learn More…

Downloading Kaltura Capture and learning how to record and publish content takes no longer than 15 minutes. To get help with the getting-started process, faculty can: 
  • Reach out to ATS staff to schedule one-on-one consultations or group demos 
  • Check out the “Getting Started” tab on Aggie video has a drop-down menu “Kaltura Capture” which links to various knowledge base articles.
 

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