Broadcast a live lecture

For materials with live lectures enabled, the instructor's camera video, microphone audio, and shared screen can be streamed in real time to all learners who have the material screen open. Learners can ask the instructor questions in text from the material screen. While broadcasting, you can also open breakout rooms to divide learners into groups for discussion.

Who can operate

• Organization administrator
• Group administrator
• Members of the material repository

Prerequisites

• In the Edit → Submission and exam settings tab of the target material, the Broadcast live lecture for this material checkbox under Live lecture is checked and Update has been pressed.
• The device used for broadcasting has a camera and microphone, and the browser is permitted to use them (Chrome or Edge recommended).
• The instructor broadcasting belongs to the same organization as the learners (or to a group within the organization).

What you can do

• Broadcast camera, microphone, and screen sharing
• During a broadcast, turn the microphone or camera off, or start and stop screen sharing
• Show captions generated by speech recognition to learners
• Check learner questions and mark them as answered
• Open breakout rooms and have learners divide into groups to discuss by audio, camera, and screen sharing

Screen flow

1. On the course page, open the target material with Start (instructor mode).
2. Press Start broadcast under Live lecture. If asked for permission to use the camera and microphone, allow it.
3. To show your screen, press Start screen sharing and select the screen or window to share. On learners' screens, the shared screen is shown large and the camera video is shown beside it.
4. As needed, temporarily stop them with Mute microphone or Turn off camera.
5. To show captions, press Start captions. What you say is converted to text by speech recognition and displayed on learners' screens. Turning off the microphone pauses captions, and turning it back on resumes them. Captions already delivered remain.
6. Check incoming questions under Questions, and after answering, press Mark as answered.
7. When the class ends, press End broadcast.

Materials in mock exam mode can also be broadcast from the question list and from each question's screen. Broadcasting and viewing continue even when you move between the list and questions.

Using breakout rooms

Instructor operations

1. During a broadcast, press Open breakout rooms under Breakout rooms.
2. Enter the Number of rooms. If you leave room names blank, they are named by number, such as Group 1 and Group 2. To give rooms names such as theme names, enter the name for each room.
3. To assign rooms, enter one learner per line under Assignments (optional), giving the learner's email address and the room number or name, separated by a tab or comma. You can paste two columns from a spreadsheet (email address and room) as-is. If left blank, learners choose their own room.
4. Press Open. Assigned learners automatically enter their assigned room. Rows whose email address cannot be found, rows for learners who cannot view the broadcast (not belonging to the same organization as the instructor, or unable to view the course), and rows whose room cannot be found are shown under The following rows could not be assigned.
5. In the room list, check each room's headcount and participants. Learners who are in a room different from their assignment are shown with their assigned room, such as Assigned: Group 2.
6. To observe a room, press Join for that room. Pressing Join for another room moves you, and Return to main brings you back to the broadcast screen. While the instructor is in a room, learners remaining on the broadcast screen do not hear the instructor, and captions are paused.
7. When a learner calls the instructor, that room shows Calling and a notification appears. After responding, press Mark as handled.
8. To tell all rooms something, enter it under Announcement to all rooms and press Send announcement. The announcement is displayed on learners' screens.
9. To end the discussion, press Return everyone to main. After 60 seconds, everyone returns to the broadcast screen and the breakout rooms close. To return everyone without waiting, press Return now immediately afterward.

Learner screen

• Assigned learners automatically enter their assigned room when breakout rooms open. If there is no assignment, select a room from the room list and press Join.
• While in a room, the broadcast video, audio, and captions are not shown. Within the room, other participants' camera video, audio, and shared screens are displayed. You can use Mute microphone, Turn off camera, and Start screen sharing. Even if you cannot use a camera or microphone, you can still join without sending video or audio.
• If you entered the wrong room, press Join for the correct room in the room list to move. Return to main brings you back to the broadcast screen.
• To request the instructor's attention, press Call instructor. To cancel, press Cancel call.
• The room list shows the headcount for each room, and pressing Participants displays the participants' names.

Learner screen

• The live video is shown automatically in Live lecture on the material screen. If you opened it before the broadcast started, it will appear once the broadcast begins.
• If audio does not play automatically due to browser settings, press Play audio.
• Enter text under Questions and press Submit question to ask the instructor. Questions are shown anonymously to other learners. Each learner can submit up to 30 questions per broadcast. The screen shows up to 100 questions, with unanswered questions given priority. If there are unanswered questions that cannot be displayed, the count is shown on the instructor's screen and they appear once the displayed questions are marked as answered.

Notes

• Only learners belonging to the same organization as the instructor receive the broadcast. Even for courses shared across multiple organizations, the broadcast is not delivered to learners in other organizations. Broadcasts cannot be started if you do not belong to any organization. If a learner leaves the organization during a broadcast, the broadcast stops reaching them in about one minute.
• When multiple instructors are broadcasting the same material, learners can choose which broadcast to watch from the dropdown above the broadcast.
• If you close the broadcast screen, you can continue the broadcast by reopening it quickly and pressing Resume broadcast on this screen. If you do not reopen it, the broadcast ends automatically within a few minutes.
• If you are broadcasting in another screen or tab, pressing Resume broadcast on this screen switches the broadcast to that screen. Previous questions and captions are carried over.
• Captions are generated automatically by speech recognition and may contain errors. The caption start button appears only in browsers that support speech recognition (such as Chrome and Edge). In Chrome, audio is sent to Google's servers for speech recognition.
• The instructor can see the names and email addresses of learners who asked questions. Be careful when displaying this on a classroom screen.
• The names shown in broadcasts and breakout rooms are the learners' names registered by administrators. If no name is registered, the display name set by the learner is shown.
• Only learners who can view the broadcast (learners in the same organization as the instructor) can enter breakout rooms. A person can be in only one room at a time; if they join a room from another screen or tab, the earlier screen leaves the room.
• Ending the broadcast also closes the breakout rooms.
• Neither the broadcast nor the breakout rooms are recorded.

Related pages

• Edit a material