Using Desktop Streaming To Bring Review Sessions Online - ACS

Chapter 4

Using Desktop Streaming To Bring Review Sessions Online Downloaded by UNIV OF FLORIDA on November 12, 2017 | http://pubs.acs.org Publication Date (Web): November 8, 2017 | doi: 10.1021/bk-2017-1270.ch004

M. K. Mann* Department of Chemistry, Austin Peay State University, 601 College St., Clarksville, Tennessee 37044, United States *E-mail: [email protected]

As constant connection to the digital world has reached near-ubiquity in the United States, the landscape of collegiate education has changed to incorporate many new internet-based technologies. In addition to email, online courses, and social media, online videos have helped students outside of the traditional classroom setting supplement their education. This chapter functions primarily as a tutorial and covers the logistics of one way to utilize online videos: holding live, interactive, online review sessions for students taking courses in chemistry. This is possible with two free services: Open Broadcaster Software Studio, a free and open-source encoding software, and YouTube live streaming, a free online platform that broadcasts live videos in real-time. This method helped facilitate student-student interactions and student-instructor interactions in a way that was highly accessible, with convenient scheduling, and was easy to use for students due to platform familiarity. These factors are likely responsible for the increased productivity and session attendance in comparison to on-ground review sessions and online review sessions using web conferencing software.

On the Nature of Online Learning University faculty have always been on the frontlines of innovation; they are often the leaders in developing and utilizing new technologies to help students learn. In fact, the very first computer-assisted instruction system was developed in © 2017 American Chemical Society Christiansen and Weber; Teaching and the Internet: The Application of Web Apps, Networking, and Online Tech for ... ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.

Downloaded by UNIV OF FLORIDA on November 12, 2017 | http://pubs.acs.org Publication Date (Web): November 8, 2017 | doi: 10.1021/bk-2017-1270.ch004

1960, years before the internet existed, at the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign. Programmed Logic for Automatic Teaching Operations (PLATO) was an intranet-based system that allowed students to listen to recorded lectures and chat with other students in ways very similar to what we use in contemporary online courses (1). By the 1990s, better technology allowed for the development of modern online courses. This provided the flexibility that helped extend college to students who would have found a traditional campus experience impossible due to medical issues, military service, or obligations to family or work. The drive for pushing the limits of academic flexibility has split nearly every aspect of collegiate learning into an electronic version and a physical version. Instructors often mix and match resources in a way that works best for their teaching style, their students’ needs, and their department’s expectations. The basics of learning have not changed; students still use books, take notes, do homework, and take exams. The change has been in the delivery method for these basics. Students may use e-books instead of physical books, email questions to their instructors instead of waiting in a line outside an office, and do the bulk of their learning at home through virtual classrooms on learning management systems instead of sitting in a physical classroom. You may have noticed that students are also increasingly utilizing online materials not affiliated with their courses to supplement their education. A prime example is Khan Academy: an educational website that has thousands of videos in dozens of disciplines including general and organic chemistry. Unsurprisingly, a recent study reported over 20% of professional learners are familiar with Khan Academy videos (2). Another popular resource is the video delivery site YouTube. Many chemists post lecture content, tutorials, and demonstration videos on YouTube. For example, at the time of this writing, a search on YouTube for “stereochemistry” results in 20,700 different video results. The first two results alone, both tutorial-style videos, have a combined view count of nearly 150,000 at the time of this writing. Considering the prevalence and popularity of these video resources, it is clear that many students, perhaps most, are comfortable using online videos to help them navigate the content in a course. This chapter focuses on the development of one specific application of online videos that has been largely left unexplored: conducting live, interactive video review sessions on YouTube. This is possible through the use of specialized encoding software that allows viewers to observe your computer’s desktop in a way completely dictated by the video-maker. This is called desktop streaming (Figure 1). While not all professors hold review sessions, those who do hold them know that the time a session takes place often determines if it will be well-attended. Doing it in class takes away precious lecture time. During the day, an open classroom must be found, and a compromise made between the instructor’s and students’ schedules. Neither are trivial tasks. By bringing review sessions online in the evening, the timing issue becomes less problematic, as students can participate, regardless of location, as long as they have internet access, and instructors can keep their valuable lecture time in class reserved for new content. As the review sessions are recorded and can be viewed at a later time, students who were not able to attend the live version are still able to watch the review session, and the videos can be watched later in the term for review. Online review 56 Christiansen and Weber; Teaching and the Internet: The Application of Web Apps, Networking, and Online Tech for ... ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.


sessions are, quite simply, one more way to increase instructor accessibility and academic flexibility in order to help our students succeed.

Figure 1. Example of a live review session including webcam footage of the instructor, ACD/ChemSketch, YouTube Live Chat, and a background image (3).

Project History: The Need for Accessibility The work presented here was done at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, TN. Austin Peay is a primarily undergraduate institution with approximately 10,000 students, of whom 40% are nontraditional. Class sizes for the work in this chapter ranged from between 15-25. Many students at the university are affiliated with the adjacent Ft. Campbell Army Base. The large number of nontraditional students and those with demanding military obligations has been the driving force for increasing course flexibility and instructor accessibility in my courses. This, in turn, has led to developing novel ways of fostering student-instructor interactions online. Between email, social media, and messaging services, there are many ways we can interact with our students online. Unfortunately, most of them are not conducive to drawing graphs, equations, and structures without uploading separate images, and they are not great for large groups of people communicating at the same time. This makes them not particularly useful for hosting a large-audience review session, though they have been used successfully in doing small-scale office hours (4). Web conferencing software, used extensively by online courses, has circumvented these issues through class-wide chat rooms and digital white boards. Seemingly ideal for online review sessions, the web conferencing software Wimba-Pronto was the original platform explored for hosting my online review sessions. Unfortunately, several significant issues were encountered: the software was cumbersome; the student had to download it and join and login into sessions; and it is not as easy to navigate as the major websites students tend to 57 Christiansen and Weber; Teaching and the Internet: The Application of Web Apps, Networking, and Online Tech for ... ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.


frequent. When multiple students participated and were using their computer’s microphone, it become chaotic and confusing. Further research showed this was typical for web conferencing software. To find a better alternative, several criteria were established that would improve on the shortcomings of web conferencing while maintaining the key attributes that make it useful as an online teaching tool. An ideal system for review sessions would combine the accessibility of common social networking applications with the utility of a web conferencing platform. It would need to 1) be user-friendly and widely accessible through common web apps; 2) facilitate student-student interactions as well as student-instructor interactions; 3) have the ability to be viewed by students at any time; and 4) have the ability to draw structures, graphs, and equations. When looking at the three most trafficked websites in the United States, Google, YouTube, and Facebook are at the top of the list (5). Until recently, only YouTube had the ability to meet all four criteria and was the model chosen for this project (Facebook has added desktop streaming capabilities for users as of March, 2017 and could now be used in the same manner as YouTube) (6). Regarding criterion (1), it has been estimated that over 80% of 18-29 year olds use YouTube, and it has widespread access through all internet-connected devices including smartphones, tablets, and computers (7). It also has a chat feature connected with every video so users can interact with each other and the instructor, which helps it fulfill criterion (2). For (3), YouTube saves all live streaming videos to your account, so students can watch your videos later if they missed a session, or would like to review. To meet criterion (4), the coupling of YouTube to desktop streaming software would be necessary so students could see webcam footage of their instructor, drawing programs like ACD/ChemSketch, and any other software an instructor would want included in the review session (see Figure 1 for an example screenshot). A free, open-source platform for this is Open Broadcaster Software Studio (OBS). The combination of YouTube and OBS allows an instructor to post live video footage from their webcam, specific websites, programs on their computer, any fixed images they want, and the chat dialog, all at the same time, and all part of the same video. Note: While it is likely many professors have never seen this type of technology used, it is common for college-aged students. It is used extensively in streaming video games for others to watch. There are video streaming websites dedicated to this exclusively, Twitch being the most notable with over 10,000,000 unique daily users (8)! The following sections serve as a guide for setting up a computer for live desktop streaming. At the end of this chapter you can find a URL link for an in-depth tutorial video that accompanies this manuscript as well as the videos streamed to date for my classes (9). The computer used for this work had a 64-bit Windows 10 operating system and 8 GB of RAM. The computer also was equipped with a touchscreen display, a standard webcam and microphone. Of course, as this document ages, changes will be made to the YouTube and OBS systems that may render some of these instructions obsolete. Fortunately, OBS and YouTube are very user-friendly and the system is relatively easy to navigate to find what you need; this hopefully will stay the case in future iterations of YouTube and OBS.

58 Christiansen and Weber; Teaching and the Internet: The Application of Web Apps, Networking, and Online Tech for ... ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.

Current Academic Uses for Live Streaming


At the time of this writing, there are no references in the literature regarding live streaming chemistry review sessions other than a small section in my previously written chapter (4). A cursory view of YouTube, however, will show many instructors posting review sessions online for their students in many disciplines. These seem to fall into a few categories of presentation: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Video of an instructor answering questions in class on a whiteboard. Feed from a document camera or other writing device. Video feed of a PowerPoint presentation. Video of an electronic writing tablet (eWriter) Computer desktop footage presenting a review session.

These videos differ from those presented in this chapter in that they lack the live, interactive component. The videos are generally put on YouTube after the video has been filmed, rather than during the recording, and unless students are there during the time of the recording (like in (1) or (2) above), they have no input regarding the direction and content of the video.

YouTube Video Basics: Setting Up a YouTube Live Account If you have never made a video on YouTube, you will be amazed at how simple it can be. As YouTube is a subsidiary of Google, those with a Google account already have a YouTube account. For those that do not, it is free and easy to sign up by going to either the YouTube or Google websites. A video can be as simple as a person talking into a camera. Indeed, if you wanted to record yourself lecturing in front of a white board, all you would need is a video camera on a cell phone and an internet connection to upload the video. Live desktop streaming videos are a little more complicated and require the use of encoding software that can convert the raw video information from your computer’s desktop into a form that can be streamed quickly to YouTube for live viewing. To set up your YouTube channel for live videos, you must go to the “Creator Studio”, which can be found in several ways on the YouTube homepage (Figure 2). The easiest way is by clicking the round subscriber icon at the top right-hand corner of the homepage. This icon can be customized by you, so it can show whatever image you want your students to see. Alternatively, by clicking the “My Channel” link on the homepage sidebar, this will take you to a page that shows a “Video Manager” tab in the upper middle portion of the screen. The Video Manager tab will then direct you to the Creator Studio. Lastly, the URL www.youtube.com/ dashboard will take you to your Creator Studio if you are signed into your YouTube account.



Figure 2. Three ways for finding the Creator Studio in YouTube. The Creator Studio contains everything you need to start posting videos. The options on the Creator Studio tab are straightforward: Video Manager takes you to a page with all your uploaded videos, where you can change settings. Live Streaming is the base of operations for when you are streaming live videos. Once you click on the Live Streaming tab, you will see a page broken into several boxes of information (Figure 3). Of particular importance: 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Video box: This is where your video can be viewed in real time (Figure 3a). You can put an image in this box that will show when the live stream is not active. It can be added, deleted, or changed at any time by clicking the “change thumbnail” box. This could be a picture, clipart, or a screen background. Basic info: This is the basic information about your videos (Figure 3b). Students can see this information when they watch a specific video, and the title in the box will be the title of your video. This can be changed later after the videos have been posted. You can set privacy here if you only want your students seeing your content. Shareable link: The link to your channel is found at the bottom of the Live Streaming page (Figure 3c). If your video privacy is set to public, the link will be a generic one for your channel that you can put on your syllabi. If you decide to set the privacy as unlisted, the link will be different for each new video. Sharing this link with your students via email is an easy way to ensure only your students see your videos. Encoder setup: The URL for the YouTube server and the Stream Key for your channel are found in the encoder setup box (Figure 3d). The Stream Key is necessary to set up OBS for streaming. The key is specific to your channel and should be kept private. Chat box: This is where students can ask you questions and interact with each other during your video (Figure 3e). This box can be removed 60

Christiansen and Weber; Teaching and the Internet: The Application of Web Apps, Networking, and Online Tech for ... ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.

from the page and viewed independently in its own window by using the “popout chat” setting in the chat box. To find the popout option, click the . vertical ellipsis symbol (..) in the corner of the box. This will be useful


when setting up your display scenes if you want your display to include the chat log for your video.

Figure 3. Setting up your YouTube Live Page. a) Video box where a thumbnail can be added. b) Box for title, description of video, category of video, and privacy setting. c) Sharable link box. d) Stream key for setting up the OBS encoder. e) Live chat box for student communication. Once you have added a thumbnail image to your video box (optional), entered in basic information for the title and description of your videos, and made note of your shareable link, you need to “reveal” the Stream Name/Key and copy that code. This will be needed when setting up the encoding software, OBS. At this point, everything is in place on your YouTube channel for setting up the encoding software and streaming live videos.

OBS Basics: Linking OBS to Your YouTube Live Account Open Broadcaster Software is a free encoding program that you download from https://obsproject.com. There are downloads available for Windows, Linux, and Apple operating systems, and while there is no formal help available, there is a very active community of experienced users (that are willing to help newcomers), 61 Christiansen and Weber; Teaching and the Internet: The Application of Web Apps, Networking, and Online Tech for ... ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.


which can be accessed through the OBS “community chat” webpage (10). Once OBS is downloaded, you can open the program by choosing the 32-bit or the 64-bit settings. This is dependent on your operating system and can be found in the “about” section of your computer’s settings if you are unsure. The first step in working with OBS is to put in the YouTube streaming key (Figure 3d). On the OBS screen there is a box of options in the lower left-hand corner. Click on “Settings”, which will open a new window of OBS settings. Click on “Stream”. Make sure your settings say Streaming Services for “Stream Type”, and YouTube/YouTube Gaming for “Service”. Enter in the stream key from YouTube (Figure 4). After this step, your OBS is linked to your YouTube channel and is set to encode your desktop videos directly to your channel.

Figure 4. Entering in your YouTube Stream Key into OBS.

OBS Scenes: Choosing What Your Students Can See When you have the OBS software running, you will first only see a black box with no content, a menu bar at the top of the page, and a navigation/settings bar at the bottom. The black box is where you can place whatever you want your students to see. The system works by layering images and windows on top of each other in a way similar to PowerPoint. You can have different groupings of “sources” (windows, images, applications, and programs) on a page at any given time; these are called “scenes”. For example, Scene 1 could contain three sources: ACD/ChemSketch, video feed from your webcam, and the chat box from YouTube. Scene 2 could be just your webcam with a whiteboard behind you. You can have multiple scenes and can switch freely between them during a streaming session. From here it is largely the instructors’ preference on what 62 Christiansen and Weber; Teaching and the Internet: The Application of Web Apps, Networking, and Online Tech for ... ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.


they want the students to see. Following are a few different options for creating a customized display that includes your webcam, internet sources, and programs on your computer. I generally switch between two different scenes; 1) YouTube chat, ACD/ChemSketch, and my webcam feed, and 2) YouTube chat, Microsoft Paint, and my webcam feed. While the ACD/ChemSketch is great for drawing structures, it can be time-intensive to draw mechanisms; I have found Microsoft Paint works well when combined with a touch-screen to draw structures and mechanisms very quickly. When I need to use mathematical equations, I use either Microsoft Equation Editor 3.0 (found as a separate window in ACD/ChemSketch by selecting “Edit” and “Insert”) or Microsoft Paint.

Designing Your Scene: Adding a Background Image A background image can be laid down first to make your plain black slide have a little chemistry character (Figure 5). An easy way to find a good image for this purpose is by searching for “chemistry wallpaper” in a search engine, or you could make your own. Most of these will be open-source images that are free for non-commercial use and are sized appropriately for this purpose. Once you find one you like, download it to your computer. In OBS, click the add sign (+) under “sources” to add this image. A menu bar will pop up, asking what type of source you want to add. Select “image” and then follow the prompts to add your wallpaper by selecting the downloaded file on your computer. It is useful to name your sources with something logical like “wallpaper” so you can change or add them in the future to other scenes without any issue. This process can be followed for any static image you would like displayed on a scene.

Designing Your Scene: Adding in Feed from a Webcam If you feel strange talking to your students without them being able to see you, adding video feed from your webcam will be useful (Figure 6). This helps foster a more personal interaction and allows you to use hand gestures, model kits, or white boards for your explanations like what your students are used to seeing in class. Most laptop computers have a webcam integrated into the computer, but an external webcam works as well. Click the add sign (+) again under “sources” to add your webcam feed. Select “video capture device” and then follow the prompts to add and name your webcam. A screen appears that allows you to choose your webcam settings. Generally, the default setting works well, but under “Resolution”, if there are no numbers, you need to select “Resolution/FPS Type” as “Custom” and put in the resolution you want for your video. The higher resolution the better the video, but if it slows down your computer significantly, using a lower resolution for the webcam may be necessary. You can change the size and location of your webcam box by clicking and dragging one of the corners and moving it to where you need it. 63 Christiansen and Weber; Teaching and the Internet: The Application of Web Apps, Networking, and Online Tech for ... ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.


Figure 5. Adding a background image to a scene.

Figure 6. Adding webcam footage to a scene.

Designing Your Scene: Adding a Source from an Open Window OBS can add a source from most windows you have open on your computer (Figure 7). Notable exceptions seem to be Microsoft Office programs and Internet Explorer, but ACD/ChemSketch, ChemDraw, Microsoft Equation Editor 3.0 (found in ACD/ChemSketch), Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Paint, the YouTube chat (once it has been popped out into its own window) and 64 Christiansen and Weber; Teaching and the Internet: The Application of Web Apps, Networking, and Online Tech for ... ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.


Graphical Analysis all work well. OBS only recognizes windows if they are currently open and not minimized on your computer. I recommend opening all programs you would like to use in a scene. You need to position each window on your screen the same way you intend to use it during your video. If you change the size of a window during your broadcast it will change the layout of that source in your scene while you are streaming. As with the previous sources, click on (+) to add a source, choose “Window Capture”, and name the program you want to add. A dropdown box will have the various open windows on your computer for you to choose. The “cursor capture” option allows your users to either see your cursor working on those sources or not.

Figure 7. Adding a new window to a scene.

Designing More than One Scene If you are making more than one scene for your broadcasts, adding the same sources becomes much simpler if you have named your current sources in a way that is easy to recognize. You can add (+) the window capture, video capture device, or images that are already in one scene by clicking on “add existing” in the create/select source box. For example, if you have a background image, a chat box, and ACD/ChemSketch, but in another scene you want to replace ACD/ ChemSketch with Graphical Analysis, you can choose “Add Existing” for the image and the chat box, reducing the number of new sources you need to add. 65 Christiansen and Weber; Teaching and the Internet: The Application of Web Apps, Networking, and Online Tech for ... ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.


Once Your Scene Is Ready Once you have your scene(s) ready, your broadcast is as simple as clicking the “Start Streaming” button on OBS. You should not have to do anything to YouTube, but you may want to keep it open to check and make sure your video is streaming. Realize that sending data across the internet is not instantaneous, so you will have a 10-20 second delay between when you say something and when it is delivered to your students on YouTube. It is important for you to turn off the volume on your computer during your broadcast if you intend to use your microphone to communicate. Otherwise the microphone will pick up everything coming from your speakers while you are talking and create a repeated loop of feedback. If you would like to use this system for videos that are NOT live streaming, you can click the “Start Recording” button and then upload the video to a platform of your choosing later. All streaming parameters and scenes in OBS will be in place after you close the program and come back to it later, so putting together your scenes does not need to be done every time you need to make a new video. If at some point during streaming you need to change from one scene to the other, simply click on the scene you need. It will transition by either cutting or fading, depending on the settings you have chosen on the OBS navigation bar. If you need to mute one of the sources during your broadcast, you can click on the eye next to the source, and it will turn it off from the scene display.

Troubleshooting Issues with OBS and YouTube While OBS studio is very useful, it is not always easy to use. Different issues can creep up that might stifle your videos’ functionality. Adding too many sources can be an issue if your computer is not very powerful. If your computer is updated, your OBS is in the current version, and your drivers are up-to-date, you can look for answers here. This section, while not including a complete list of issues you may encounter, should serve as a starting point for troubleshooting these problems. Sources Need To Be Cropped or Margins Changed If your image is not sized properly, you can click and drag the image to the appropriate size similar to PowerPoint. If you need to change one of the margins of your source, click on “Edit” followed by “Transform” and “Edit Transform” to crop the margins of the image, or right-click on the image and click “Transform” and “Edit Transform”. Sometimes certain sources will give an additional black border around the active screen, and this can also be cropped off in this manner. Adding Web Sources Gives a Blank Box This seems to be a dilemma with Google Chrome and Internet Explorer. If you have another browser such as Mozilla Firefox, that will likely solve the issue. If you prefer to use Chrome, you will need to go to “Settings” in Chrome and scroll down to “Advanced” at the bottom of the page. Scroll down to the “System” box and turn off the “Use hardware acceleration when available” function followed by 66 Christiansen and Weber; Teaching and the Internet: The Application of Web Apps, Networking, and Online Tech for ... ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.

“Relaunch”. This should only need to be done once and will be saved for future streaming unless you physically turn it back on. Unfortunately, I was unable to find a fix for Internet Explorer or Microsoft Office programs. A thorough search of the OBS chat community indicated that there are no current solutions for these platforms. Adding the Webcam Is Not Working


Unlike other windows, which need to be open to be seen in OBS, the webcam needs to be turned off. If it is turned on, OBS will not be able to use it because another program (the webcam itself) is using it. Close out your webcam and try adding it again. Webcam Resolution Is Not Good The resolution can be changed in the webcam settings by double clicking on the webcam source and changing the settings under “resolution” to a higher number. In some cases, you can experiment with the webcam parameters to get it to work. The Feed Is Choppy or Does Not Stream Well This can be an issue with either your computer or with your internet service. If your computer does not have enough RAM to process the multiple open programs, webcam, and video feed, you will get a choppy video that will eventually stop broadcasting. The system that I have used successfully is a Windows 10 computer with 8 GB of RAM and a 64-bit operating system. If your system is normally fine with streaming, but is suddenly having issues, it is likely that your internet connection is not working well. A Source Disappears from the Scene or Changes Shape When Broadcasting You may notice that if you minimize a source when broadcasting, it may disappear from your scene (this issue seems largely corrected in the newest OBS version). Also, if you change the size of your source windows from the time you add it to your scene to when you broadcast, it will change the shape in the scene. To prevent these issues, set up your sources to be the same size and position that you intend to use when broadcasting. Click the icons open in your taskbar when you need to change one of your sources instead of minimizing your windows. For Other Issues Due to the nature of open-source software like OBS, there is no formal online support help. However, there is a wonderful community of users that participate in the online Chat Forum (found on the OBS homepage) if you have additional issues. I have personally found this group to be wonderful for answering questions I have had about issues in the system. Of particular importance is the log files for 67 Christiansen and Weber; Teaching and the Internet: The Application of Web Apps, Networking, and Online Tech for ... ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.


your broadcasts. The users of the chat forum will need your log file to provide troubleshooting help for your issue (Figure 8). This is found by clicking “Help” on the OBS toolbar, “Log Files”, and then choosing to upload your current or last log file.

Figure 8. Finding the log files for your online troubleshooting.

Personal Experiences, Observations, and Shortcomings New technologies are always interesting to experiment with in the classroom, but as my experience with web conferencing review sessions has shown, not all technologies yield fruitful results when it comes to reaching students. I have now used YouTube Live with OBS for a full academic year (Fall 2016-Summer 2017) for three different organic chemistry courses (Brief Organic, Organic I, and Organic II). Class sizes ranged from about 15-25. The following is a list of anecdotal observations, system shortcomings, and experiences from the previous year that a new user may find helpful.

Scheduling Review sessions were streamed the night before an exam for roughly 45-90 minutes between 5:00-8:00 pm. This seemed to be a good compromise between the time after a student has studied enough to get questions, but before they have finished studying for the evening. The beginning time was always chosen through a class discussion/vote of what time worked best for students, and that seemed to be dictated by factors including day of the week, major campus events, and other scheduled exams.

Time Commitment The majority of the time commitment for these sessions is the initial scene setup OBS. By following the tutorial outlined here, a basic scene like those in this 68 Christiansen and Weber; Teaching and the Internet: The Application of Web Apps, Networking, and Online Tech for ... ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.

manuscript would take about one hour or less to complete. Once the scenes are in place, however, they are there permanently every time you open the program. That means getting a review session started with existing scenes would take less than 5 minutes (essentially the amount of time it takes to open the programs you will be using).


Students Unable To “Attend” the Live Sessions Review sessions are not mandatory, and while the class votes on a time that works best for most, there is generally a student with soccer practice, work, or childcare duties that is unable to participate when the video is live. When students are unavailable to watch the live session, they send an email (or Facebook message) of any questions ahead of time so they can be answered during the session. Those students can then watch the video later when their schedule permits, as the videos can be watched at any time after the live stream. I have generally received one or two questions in this manner per semester.

Comparing YouTube Live to Standard Web Conferencing YouTube Live attracted much more attention from my students than the web conferencing software Wimba-Pronto. The videos on my YouTube channel have been watched dozens of times, sometimes quadruple the number of students in my classes. I have had 25% or more of my class, sometimes more, participate in the review sessions when they are live. This is easy to determine, as the YouTube Live dashboard indicates how many people are watching your video at any given time, and the chat includes the screen names of who is participating. By comparison, Wimba-Pronto attracted less than 10% of my students per session. While the video count numbers on YouTube can be inflated from YouTube users not in my class watching these videos, I am still having much more active class participation than with web conferencing. As I was the only person with microphone access, it also kept students from talking over each other and experiencing confusion during the sessions. Over the 2016-2017 academic year (including the 2017 Summer term) there was a total of 11 videos made between 4 courses. There were several times that software updates caused technical difficulties, and in those cases a video was not made for the review session of that exam. Those technical difficulties have been addressed in this chapter, and should prove less problematic for new users reading this manuscript, as well as future streaming sessions for the author. The view count of each video and the corresponding number of students in the class at the time can be found in Table 1. All videos can be found on the YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/user/professormann. 69 Christiansen and Weber; Teaching and the Internet: The Application of Web Apps, Networking, and Online Tech for ... ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.

Table 1. Summary of Review Session Participation for Fall 2016 View Count


Video Name

Students in Class

Brief Organic Exam 1 Review, Fall 2016

73

24


84

24


28

24

Organic 2 Exam 1 Review, Fall 2016

39

22

Organic 2 Exam 3 Review, Fall 2016

56

22

Organic 1 Exam 1 Review, Spring 2017

31

23


25

23


13

23

Organic 1 Exam 1 Review, Summer 2017

51

18

Organic 1 Exam 2 Review, Summer 2017

23

18

Perceived Shortcomings in Communication One shortcoming of YouTube Live in comparison to web conferencing is that students are relegated to the role of asking questions in a chat box rather than being able to draw on a digital board and talk into a microphone. While this system works great for the instructor in communicating chemistry, it can be harder for participating students, as they are restricted to their keyboards. This has not been a problem for most questions in my experience, but in the event that students have a specific issue they need help with that is not conducive to an alphanumeric keyboard, I use the methods previously published (taking cellphone photographs and emailing me the picture, or sending the picture through social media through Facebook or Google Hangouts) (3). While this may seem cumbersome, modern students are very adept at communicating through electronic pictures, combined with text, as they do this with social media every day (11). While initially a cause for concern, restricting student communication to the chat box (or emailed pictures when necessary) was unproblematic and actually prevented students from talking over each other like in web conferencing. YouTube Audience While my videos are accessible to anyone with an internet connection via public settings, you can choose to change your privacy settings to fit your needs. If you are interested in sharing your videos with your class, but not sharing your videos with the world, you can set your videos to “private” and then “share” your videos with the email addresses of your students. Alternatively, they can be set to “unlisted”, and your students can be given the direct link. These settings can be changed at any time for your videos, so while I have kept my videos public even after the semester is over, an instructor could choose to hide them from public view after the semester has ended. If you want to keep it off YouTube entirely, you 70 Christiansen and Weber; Teaching and the Internet: The Application of Web Apps, Networking, and Online Tech for ... ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.

could still record videos (rather than live streaming) of your desktop using OBS and send it to your students (the video is saved to your computer as an MP4 file). As mentioned above, the first two stereochemistry video results on YouTube had 150,000 views, and students everywhere are using resources online to supplement their learning. Some of my own view count may be students at other universities looking for help in their classes. It is entirely likely that you will have an audience that exceeds the boundaries of your class roster if you do not set your videos to private. The best part about YouTube is its wide accessibility, but if you prefer a smaller audience, YouTube makes that possible.


Making Mistakes The live streaming has no room for corrections or editing during filming, though you can crop out pieces of video after it has been made (though it may not be seamless). Generally, streaming relies on a large level of coordination between multiple open windows. I personally keep open YouTube Live, YouTube Chat, Facebook, and email for incoming questions, ACD/ChemSketch, and Microsoft Paint; this tends to increase my number of errors. In times where I have spoken or drawn in error during my streaming, I will let my class know of the error’s existence and location in the video, and I will email them a copy of the correction, rather than edit the video after-the-fact. If you watch my videos, you will likely see this happen a few times, but I have never had a student raise a concern about it or express a misunderstanding of the material once a correction was made. YouTube Live vs. Facebook Live As mentioned above, Facebook’s video broadcasting service, Facebook Live, has very recently started allowing desktop streaming. OBS can be used with Facebook Live in the same manner as YouTube Live. While Facebook is also a widely popular website, the number of videos on Facebook Live is a fraction of a percent of the number of YouTube videos. Facebook is typically considered more of a social networking site, whereas YouTube is exclusively designed for the viewing of videos. At this point, it seems YouTube still serves as a better vehicle for streaming videos to a large audience, because our students are apparently more familiar with this platform. Other Planned Uses Because the content of these desktop streaming videos can be customized so heavily, there are many applications for the technology. One particularly useful application would be for periodic electronic lectures. In the event of a missed class due to a conference or other obligation, I plan on recording (not live streaming) lecture videos to reduce the amount of class time missed. Of course, most other classroom activities, such as problem-solving sessions, literature reviews, special topic lectures, or others that involve heavy instructor-student interaction, could also be done remotely with this technology. 71 Christiansen and Weber; Teaching and the Internet: The Application of Web Apps, Networking, and Online Tech for ... ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.


Conclusion While the idea of a portable classroom was established decades ago with PLUTO, and expanded through learning management systems and modern online classes, there is still a lot of room for growth and development in using internetbased technologies inside and outside of the classroom. Common web applications that are designed to foster social interactions coupled with content delivery, such as YouTube, have expanded the concept of a portable classroom into an even more accessible place for our students and serve as a versatile tool to increase instructor accessibility and course flexibility. While many professors opt out of review sessions due to a feared decrease in lecture time and/or the difficulty of scheduling a session where most students can attend, live online review sessions solve these issues through high accessibility in a remote fashion. While it seems we are still quite far from a perfect online classroom, we have reached a point where there are multiple options available for nearly every academic need. As technology continues to improve we will likely find ourselves at the forefront of developing even better methods for fostering interactions with our students outside of the classroom.

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Burns, P. K.; Bozeman, W. C. Computer-assisted instruction and mathematics achievement: Is there a relationship. Educ. Technol. 1981, 21, 32–39. Horrigan, J. B. Lifelong Learning and Technology. Pew Research Center Internet & Technology [online]. March 22, 2016. http://www. pewinternet.org/2016/03/22/lifelong-learning-and-technology/ (accessed July 14, 2017). Chemistry Wallpaper Image SDW 1351438. Adorable Wallpapers, Photos and Stocks website [online]. http://www.smartcc365.com/WDF1351438.html (accessed September 1, 2017). Mann, M. K. Approaches for Increasing Professor Accessibility in the Millennial Classroom. In Addressing the Millennial Student in Undergraduate Chemistry; Potts, G. E., Dockery, C. R., Eds.; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2013; Vol. 1180, pp 147−163. Gray, A. These are the World’s most Popular Websites. World Economic Forum [online]. April 10, 2017. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/04/ most-popular-websites-google-youtube-baidu/ (accessed July 14, 2017). Costine, J. Facebook Live adds PC Game and Desktop Live Streaming. Tech Crunch [online]. March 22, 2017. https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/22/ facebook-live-desktop/ (accessed July 16, 2017). Anderson, M. 5 Facts About Online Video, for YouTube’s 10th Birthday. Pew Research Center Fact Tank [online]. February 12, 2015. http:// www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/02/12/5-facts-about-online-video-foryoutubes-10th-birthday/ (accessed July 14, 2017). About Page. Twitch: Social Video for Gamers. [online]. http://www. twitch.tv/p/about/ (accessed July 14, 2017). 72

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Professor Mann’s Streaming Channel and OBS/YouTube Live Tutorial [online]. https://www.youtube.com/user/professormann (accessed August 31, 2017). 10. OBS Community Chat [online]. https://obsproject.com/chat (accessed September 5, 2017). 11. Global Digital Communication: Texting, Social Networking Popular Worldwide. Pew Research Center Global Attitudes & Trends [online]. February 29, 2012. http://www.pewglobal.org/2011/12/20/global-digitalcommunication-texting-social-networking-popular-worldwide/ (accessed September 5, 2017).


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Using Desktop Streaming To Bring Review Sessions Online - ACS

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