Not just another Zoom class: How to amplify and engage students with tools used by Twitch streamers!

Concurrent Session 5

Session Materials

Brief Abstract

Have you ever wondered how streamers create their engaging and fun live streams for their viewers? Wouldn’t you want to engage your students the same way? We will show you all the secrets and give your hands-on experience with the hardware and software used by streamers everywhere!

Presenters

Lead Presenter: Arianna Davis, University of Central Florida

Arianna holds a Bachelor of Science in Communications-Electronic Media from the University of North Florida. She currently works as Web Project Manager Assistant at the University of Central Florida’s Center for Distributed Learning. Arianna has always enjoyed all things involving media and technology from videography to video games. She started gaining experience in media production from a young age and decided to pursue a career that would directly align with her passions. In 2013, she began working at the Florida Institute of Technology as the Media Production Technician for the Continuing Education department where she created videos in a studio environment for their online courses. In 2015, she was promoted to Media Production Manager for the Information Technology department where she managed instructional video operations on campus as well as live events and digital signage. She is very excited about working at UCF’s CDL and with a team of highly skilled individuals. She plans to continue her education by pursuing a MS in Digital Forensics at UCF.

Co-presenter: Marie Bartlett, University of Central Florida

Co-presenter: Bradon Lewis, University of Colorado - Denver

Bradon has a passion for helping students and faculty better understand how technology can enrich the classroom experience. Since 2004 he has held many positions in various education technology roles such as IT Support, Faculty Development, System Administrator and Instructional Designer. In all of these roles Bradon has sought to provide the best education technology solution that meets the needs of today’s modern classroom.

Additional Authors

Extended Abstract

In this workshop, we will explore ways to make hosting your live online class more fun and engaging for you and your students by executing methods used by streamers on Twitch, a popular live-streaming platform where people share their hobbies, play video games, and interact with their community.  

Twitch attracts millions of viewers each day, with 41% of those viewers between the ages of 16-24. The popularity of independent streamers has sky-rocketed over the last few years. Many people choose it as their main form of daily entertainment compared to the past, where people might be more apt to watch the evening news or other cable television programs. What makes these streams so engaging? Why do viewers flock to watch someone play the latest video game when they could play the game themselves? It is the same reason a student may opt to attend your class live versus watching the recording; they hope to share ideas and strategies with their peers.

We will start by covering a variety of different video software that is available at no cost to you or your students. Software that can be customized and built to fit your specific needs and allows you to save your settings, so you do not need to set it up each time you want to use it. Software that allows you to queue up fun graphics, GIFs, and other media sources that you can manually play during specific times of your live online session. For example, a student answered a question correctly, you can play a video of fireworks going off in your virtual classroom with a simple press of a button on your keyboard. All of this can be done with hardware you may already have, like a phone, laptop, webcam, microphone, etc.  

The second half of this workshop will focus on additional hardware setups. Each setup has its own strengths like the ability to pull in multiple camera feeds or simplify your setup and controls in web-conferencing platforms. And one of the setups, most importantly, provides a button with a firework icon that when pressed, plays fireworks over your video feed. 

You will get hands-on experience with different hardware and software during the workshop, including but not limited to a Blackmagic ATEM Mini, an Elgato Stream Deck, Stream Deck Mobile, and Open Broadcaster Software.  

A Blackmagic ATEM mini is a piece of hardware that can be used to create a multi-camera live production with up to four video inputs and a webcam output that feeds straight into your computer. You can easily transition between the four different video inputs with the tap of a button on the device. This setup is great for live demonstrations or even experiments you are doing in your lab on campus.  

An Elgato Stream Deck is another piece of hardware, but this one is simple; it makes your life easier. You can set a Stream Deck up to automate a ton of processes that you use in your online synchronous classes like sharing your screen, muting your microphone or all your participants microphones, share an image, play a video or media source, open a software program, and so much more. The Stream Deck mobile allows you to use your phone as a Stream Deck. You can do all the amazing things listed above but without purchasing another piece of hardware.  

Open Broadcaster Software (OBS) is one of the most powerful pieces of free and open-source software that exists today. An amazing community surrounds OBS, making video-related tasks easier and better with each release. It is a useful tool not only for streaming and live video but also for pre-recording content. Using OBS with your Stream Deck takes your setup to a new level with the ability to map hotkeys in OBS to buttons on your Stream Deck.  

If any of these tools sound fun or interesting, this would be the workshop for you!  

We will cover best practices on how to use these tools, how to troubleshoot them when things go wrong, and share valuable resources and cheat sheets to bring back to your institution to help you implement any of the tools and software demonstrated.