Lesson 5 - Theories of Learning

24.1. Live, Streamed Video

This is basically a classroom lecture delivered at the time of delivery to remote students (although there may also be live students in the lecture theatre as well). The remote students may be watching on their own at home, work, or in transit, or (more often) in small groups at another campus or local learning centre. There is no change in the design, although the instructor may need to make sure that the remote students are not ignored if there are questions or discussion. For an example, see here.

This is often the first step instructors take into online learning because they do not have to do anything new other than learn how to set up and switch on the equipment. As the technology became cheaper and easier to use, the use of live-streamed lectures doubled between 2016 and 2017 in Canada (Bates et al., 2018).

Some instructors require all students to be present during the live lecture in order to ensure discussion, but this can be counter-productive if the aim of going online is to increase flexibility for students. This can be countered by using an online asynchronous discussion forum in a learning management system. In most cases, though, lecturers prefer also to record the live transmission so all students can access the lecture at any time (see the next section below).