Live Streaming for Education: Why Teachers Will Want to Participate

The future of education is going to continually change with the force of virtual learning. Since Leaped is a live streaming platform for education, it will join other live streaming services in becoming a strong leader in live video education.

Why Should Educators Want to Teach Through Leaped?

To start, it’s an amazing way to expand your reach and talk to a larger audience. The walls of a classroom no longer contain your teaching talents; we have learned over the past year that you can teach from anywhere, at any time. Why limit yourself to only 30 people when you could be reaching thousands? Not only are you talking to more learners, but you are speaking to a targeted audience that truly wants to learn from you. And the more viewers you have, the more viewers will discover you and your content, continually building your virtual community.

The mobility and flexibility of a live streaming platform is a major advantage when it comes to virtual education. Even if you’re not a full-time educator, and you just enjoy teaching others, you can work around your schedule to make time for your passions in life. 

Increased Productivity & Maximized Learning

If you know how to live stream, you know that you are putting out content in real time. In doing this, users can watch you solve problems or teach yoga or make chicken cordon bleu in the moment. Users can send in questions or comments and you can answer them during your live video stream. You are able to explain things as you do them to people that need your help. This real-time engagement, interaction, and elevated communication from anywhere in the world is a game-changer for teaching and learning.

The pressure of raising a hand in class is removed and students are able to learn without that nervousness of getting something wrong, helping them stay more focused and motivated.

Diversity in Curriculum

Who says you are limited to traditional school subjects? Live video streaming allows you to broadcast from a home gym, your wood shop, a craft room, and more. Teach anything you want to teach. Many fitness instructors rely on social media to post workouts or post meal ideas, but with Leaped, they can set up a live stream where they can teach more in-depth on these things.

A retiree can teach his hobby of furniture flipping to the next generation. A baker can share their favorite techniques with the world. The opportunities are endless!

Leaped is a Part of the Future of Live Stream Education

It’s time to learn how to live stream and start being involved with the virtual world as it continues to grow. Leaped opens doors for educators that have not always been available, and only offers benefits to you as an educator.

How will you use a live stream to make the world a better place? What will you teach the world today?

The Positive Effects of Online Learning

Modern education has looked very different over the past year; technology has been essential as the use of live video has been a necessity for meeting with classes.

While many schools and programs have utilized various tools to make this virtual learning happen, we are here to take it to the next level. Leaped is focused on education and learning, creating a great environment to teach and learn with so many benefits to both the educator and the student.  

Here are some of the positive benefits of online learning that will put Leaped at the top of your educational live streaming list:

1. Flexibility, Comfort, and the Gift of Time

Flexibility. Being able to create your own schedule. Choosing when to go live or choosing which live streams you are able to watch. No matter what your daily life holds, it is extremely helpful to have flexibility for teaching or learning in order to get the most out of this platform.

Comfort. This is a big one, because it’s really convenient to tune in while you’re in sweats, and you don’t have to worry about all of that gas money it would take to get to your favorite class or seminar. Your audience might even engage more when they are in the solace of their own personal space, rather than sitting in a physical room with other people. 

Time. Your time is valuable, so you want to make sure you are spending it wisely and getting the most out of it. When you are participating in online learning, subscribed to a particular user, you know you will get consistent content rather than a crash course each week. Users can harness microlearning on Leaped, giving viewers 1 or 2 hours a week to go over a topic, become familiar with it, and ask questions or give feedback to the instructor before the next live video. This helps them take in the information; it won’t just go in one ear and out the other.

2. Building a Community of Like-Minded People

When you start an educational live stream, you will draw other individuals that are equally as passionate about whatever subject or activity you choose to teach. You will all be able to relate to each other and learn from one another about the process of event planning or the history of Nordic Vikings. 

You will build relationships, make friends, and create a strong community of people who truly care about what you are putting out into the world and want to learn from you. The audience will also most likely create friendships with each other, expanding their network and allowing them to work together to better understand the content.

3. Increased Instructor - Student Time

Operating through a live video stream means that questions can be asked and answered in real time. This engagement is crucial! Immediate feedback or questions help the teacher and truly benefits those that are learning because they get instant clarification or instant answers. If you are open to one-on-one instruction, users can share their screen or their camera with you to get further help. If you are into knitting, a user might show you their latest attempt to make a hat or ask you questions about the sweater they are crocheting.

4. You Choose What You Learn

On this platform, you have the ability to choose a specific course to look at. You can step outside of the typical curriculum box. You are able to learn how to make a delicious tres leches cake or learn the proper form for deadlifting weights. You will get to learn about anything and everything from passionate educators that are just excited to share their knowledge with you. Most importantly, you are in control of what you consume.

5. Accessibility & Inclusivity

This goes along with comfort, as virtual learning includes those that might be more shy in person to participate. Removing the anxiety of raising your hand or speaking up in front of others allows for more communication between the instructor and the user.

Online learning is quite accessible with a webcam and a good internet connection. However, it also does not restrict others based on their mobility, or their physical limitations. You can teach or learn wherever you are, whenever you want.

6. Improving Those Technological Skills

Leaped is for anyone, okay? If your grandfather wants to teach the younger generation about gardening and the best times to grow certain vegetables, he will eventually become proficient in live video streaming through some beginning help and repeated use of the platform over time. More traditional pen-and-paper users will become more comfortable with technology after getting familiar with our platform.

Online learning is just efficient. It gives you flexibility, the power to choose, it is inclusive, and you will meet tons of people that share your interests. You can only benefit from it!

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How Live Video Quality Affects User Engagement

Buffering. Frozen screens. Broken audio. Things we all hate. 

Nothing is more annoying than cuddling up and getting comfortable on the couch with your favorite snack to binge your new show, only to be hit with a spinning wheel every 2 minutes. Buffering isn’t even the only type of live stream nuisance; there is the choppy audio, blurry video, and even those times when the audio does not match up with the video.

This is a big issue when it comes to streaming the newest season of the latest show. It can be an even bigger issue when you are live streaming to your online audience. Even going live on social media outlets can get messed up if you have bad service, you start breaking up, or your video begins to freeze. When you have a bad live stream, it negatively affects user engagement.

According to TechRadar, more than 50% of live streaming viewers leave a low-quality stream in 90 seconds or less. Phew. Kind of makes you want to make sure you have the best quality possible, doesn’t it?

In 2015, a study of millennials between the ages of 26-34 found that 75% of millennials would “give up” on a video stream within four minutes if the quality was subpar.

Admit it - you’re guilty of turning off your TV when a show started to buffer or you’ve quit watching a live stream on Instagram because it froze or was too blurry. 

Students at Stony Brook University conducted a study on the impacts of video quality on user engagements with Conviva, which is a real-time intelligence platform for optimized streaming. 

This study looked at all types of content, but the one that was most impacted by buffering was live content. What they found was that lowering the buffering ratio will ultimately increase user engagement with your content. Engaged users make for a successful live stream, and they help you maintain a loyal following.

To keep viewers’ attention and keep them engaged, you need to think about what you can do to stay ahead of any trouble by getting some good equipment. Depending on the year your smartphone was made, you might have high-quality video quality with that. However, if you want to guarantee clear video, you could invest in a modern video camera to set up and connect to your computer.

Using a better video camera is also helpful because many users are watching live content from their mobile devices, meaning they need to see your content clearly on a smaller screen. Crisp audio is also necessary for a great video stream. 

Put the best possible content out there for your viewers. Don’t let buffering, fuzzy video, or bad cell service stop you from a flawless live video. 

When you do everything you can to stream a clear, audible, perfectly-synced video, you should continue to have great engagement. 

High-Quality Audio: The Key to a Great Live Stream

Of course you want your audience to see your video and visuals, but what is even more important than those? Your audio! 

With all of today’s updated technology, you can record video in 4K on a smart phone and it will look incredible. However, the audio can still be muffled by a finger blocking the microphone or the sound of wind if you’re outdoors. 

It’s awesome to see your content, but broken audio will turn viewers away because they can’t hear anything you're trying to teach or share. How can we guarantee that our live streams will not only look professional, but sound professional, too? 

We have some tips to help you achieve your best audio quality, but first -- let’s talk about some common audio issues we come across.

Problems with Audio

• Background Noise

• Muffled Speech

• A Humming or Buzzing Sound

• No Sound

• Sound is Too Quiet or Too Loud

These problems are far too familiar for anyone that has gone live on the web or live streams regularly. Sometimes a poor connection can factor into this as well, but that is not the streamer’s fault. 

We can avoid these problems by using better gear, placing the microphone in an effective position, eliminating outside noise, controlling the audio feed through a sound mixer and the platform, and always testing it before going live.

What kind of microphone should I be using?

While you can use your built-in mics on your phone or computer, it is much more effective to own an external microphone that you can control better. 

The perfect microphone for you depends on the type of content you are streaming. For example, if you are staying close to the computer to teach a language or a quick history lesson, you would want an XLR microphone to achieve your professional audio quality.

XLR Microphone

The XLR cables associated with this type of microphone will carry and send balanced audio, which will isolate noise input and put out clean, crisp sound. You’ll want to move this microphone closer to its intended source, probably directly in front of you, so that you don’t catch any distracting sounds in the background. 

It also helps to be in a smaller room, where there is less space for sound to bounce around. While choosing to go with an XLR microphone can be costly, it doesn’t have to be. You can definitely find some that will heavily increase your sound quality without breaking the bank!

If you are teaching an online fitness class, you would want to have a lavalier microphone that you can attach to your shirt, keeping the mic close to your mouth and still providing professional audio quality. It would not be wise to have an XLR mic when you’re 3 feet away from the video source doing jumping jacks, but the lavalier mic makes this possible.

Man adjusting his Lavalier Microphone

You can plug these microphones into smart devices as well, so you are able to adjust your streaming setup to fit your needs. Lavalier microphones won’t hurt your wallet either, and it is well worth the extra dollars to improve your audio quality and your overall live streaming experience.

Thanks! Now what?

Building your perfect, professional setup does not have to happen overnight. You want to make sure you are getting the right materials for you and your content, rather than just aimlessly spending hours and money on things you might not actually need. 

Even if you want to record on your smartphone, you can invest in a better microphone to make your stream that much better. We want to hear what is going on when we tune into your content! Visuals are great, but they don’t really do much when we are distracted by your dog barking in the other room or if you sound totally muffled the entire time.

The bottom line here is that your audio can make or break the quality of your live stream, and we want to make sure you have the correct equipment.

You will feel more confident sharing your content when it is professional, and you will have a greater chance of viewers interacting with you and sharing your stream with others.

The Benefits of Live Streaming

Why Should We Care About Live Streaming?

Technology has evolved so much over the last decade. As social media and the "online presence" grows, live streaming has become one of the most efficient ways to connect with your followers on various platforms. 

Here at Leaped, we want to give educators of all types the same efficiency when it comes to their passions in life. It's a place where they can exhibit their knowledge, connect with like-minded individuals, build communities, and earn the money they deserve through teaching.

Read on to learn more about the effects of live streaming and the reasons it is so powerful!

Photo by Tye Doring on Unsplash

#1 Prime Engagement

When you are live, you call the shots on the time you are interacting with your audience. Your content is on when you want it to be; it's not a video that anyone can pull up at any time. 

This ensures that you will get meaningful engagement from people that genuinely care about what you have to say, and it keeps your community tight. It allows you to boost interaction with your audience in real-time.

#2 There is a Human Aspect

Being able to have this great engagement during a live stream provides the opportunity for you to build essential relationships with your audience. Followers can see you be a natural person - you might stutter, laugh, or make a mistake - and this shows your authenticity to them. 

It helps your community relate to you and feel like they can identify with you on a deeper level. 

#3 You Can Expand Your Reach

Connecting online means you can connect with individuals all over the world, not just in your small town. Maybe you're a high school culinary teacher, but you want to share your kitchen ingenuity with more than a dozen teenagers. Starting your live stream journey will help you get in contact with others that share a love for cooking, no matter where they are located.

You can gain an audience you never thought was within reach by just being yourself and sharing your passion.

#4 Your Content Comes With a Sense of Urgency

You are in charge. You set the times and decide when you want to put your content out there. Once you have an established, tight-knit community, you will be able to schedule the things you want to stream. 

This piques your audience's interest and gives them something to look forward to, knowing they can only catch your content at certain times.

#5 Earn Extra Income

You can make money while sharing your passion, and you won't even have to worry about dumping a lot of money into this endeavor. You can have a setup with cameras, a mic, positioned lighting if you choose, but as long as you have a computer with a webcam or a phone with a camera, you can stream.

Streaming through platforms, like Leaped, offers income opportunities. For example, while building your communities and finding like-minded individuals, you are gaining monthly subscribers that pay to learn from you and engage with you over time.

#6 You're Talking to People that Will Listen

You shouldn't have to worry about any internet "trolls" in your audience, especially if your subscribers are paying to see your content. Since your content is scheduled and not readily available, others are committed to listening to what you have to say because they want to hear it.

Those that are tuned in to your live video stream are dedicated to and tuned in to you and your content.

What Are You Waiting For?

Live streaming to an audience is a powerful thing, and we want educators to experience this firsthand. Whether you want to share your love for a subject with the world or you just enjoy engaging content, this is the platform and place for you.

What will you teach the world today?