Informed Student Participation in Class Recordings
Reading Time: 3 minutes
Identification
This teaching tip offers suggestions for helping students understand the way a course may use and distribute recordings. It explains the recording features of Teams and provides suggestions for supporting students in choosing their level of participation in recordings created by either service.
Consider Consent and Privacy
Conestoga’s privacy team has provided information on privacy and consent for synchronous classrooms. Begin with this as background on appropriate messaging when using recorded class sessions as a learning tool. Consider adding an announcement or text module in your eConestoga course that specifies:
- The collection notice advised on the Consent and Privacy page;
- Your course or program-specific guidance on whether or not recordings will be used in assessments, and if so, how;
- A reminder that students may not record or distribute course activity, content, meetings with other students, breakout room meetings, or meetings with faculty without permission.
Create Informed Norms of Participation
Seek to create an invitational and informed learning space. Before starting the recording, use a statement like the examples below to help students make informed choices about how they participate.
Sample Statement to Students:
“I’ll be recording the main room of our class meeting and will post this in eConestoga for you to review or for anyone who couldn’t make it today. Only members of this class will be able to access to this recording. To ask questions, you can either use your mic, and choose to have your webcam on or off, or you can type your questions directly in the chat. If you choose to participate using your mic, it may also record your webcam if it is on. Please note that Teams captures most webcams and names in the recording. The recording will also capture class chat messages. For attendance purposes, I ask that you sign in to Office 365 before you join the meeting to be a Verified participant.”
Consider How The Platform Records
Video
In Teams, active microphones determine whose video is presented. If a webcam is off, Teams will display the name of the speaker and record their audio. If the webcam is live, it will record the speaker’s webcam. In Teams, the names and/or webcams of all participants may be visible in the recording.
Students can be welcomed to share their webcam and mic, but should not be required to do so. Be prepared to accept in good faith a student’s request not to be recorded. Invite students to participate more robustly as they become comfortable.
The organizer and co-organizer of the meeting can turn on and off the recording. Remind students that they must not record the session or share the recording. Classes and the content in them should only be used as learning resources for enrolled students in the course.
One-on-one consultations with students would not usually be recorded, so if you have Teams set to auto-record be sure to switch it off before proceeding with the meeting.
Breakout Rooms
A cloud recording typically captures the main room. Breakout rooms are not recorded as part of the main recording. However, typically, if the co-organizer prefers, they can record a breakout room by visiting it and hitting record.
Build community among students early by using breakout rooms and ice breakers. It’s more likely that students will use their webcam and mic with their peers in paired or small group breakout rooms, building these habits of participation through experience and over time.
Chat
In Teams, private messages occur outside an individual meeting. The public chat is recorded as a thread in the channel the meeting was hosted in, or as a separate group chat when booked as an individual meeting. Again, learners can benefit from conversations and questions within a class meeting.
Identification
Teams will present the name of the attendeeds in the recording and chat transcript. Attendees’ name is tied to their email account, and is not modifiable in a video chat. While recording, avoid asking questions that require or invite students to disclose sensitive personal information, such as medical history or specific geographic location. Support students in using pseudonyms if this would preserve their feelings of privacy.
Share the Link to the Recording
Please share the link with the entire class by posting it in a module in the course. There are many reasons why a student may miss a class, and many reasons why a student might benefit from reviewing the material. The goal of sharing the link is to be as supportive as possible for the entire class.
If Needed, Trim Recordings
There is no need to trim recordings or look to create a polished end product out of the baseline recording. As the goal is to provide students within a course with a chance to learn authentically, it is best to provide the recording of the class experience as it happened. However, if needed to ensure privacy, you can trim at the beginning or end of the recording using MS Stream app.
