Instructor Support for Educational Systems

How do I use the Live Room Tools?

Updated on

This article explains how to use the Tools in the Live Room.

When you click Tools in the toolbar, the Course Tools panel opens. This window displays the available tools for the Live Room:

The following tools are covered below:

Youtube

 If you click on YouTube, a new window will open where a Youtube link can be entered. You can then add this video to a playlist via Add to playlist or play directly via Play.

Whiteboard

The Whiteboard option facilitates a whiteboard, on which you can draw and write. 

The following toolbar appears when using a whiteboard:

There are several options in the toolbar (left to right):

  • Hide/Show active Whiteboards.
  • Undo (undo up to 10 edits within the same session ).
  • Redo (redo up to 10 edits within the same session).
  • Pointer.
  • Highlighter.
  • Pencil tool.
    • The Pencil tool also has a pull-down menu that allows you to:
      • Highlight
      • Erase
      • Add text
      • Add pictures
  • Rectangle icon, with a pull-down menu to select other shapes.
  • Adjust pencil width.
  • Different colours for the pencil (blue, green, red and black).
  • Change the background of the Whiteboard.
  • To the right of the toolbar are two icons:
    • "Three Points" icon.
    • X icon.
  • The "three-point" icon opens a new pull-down window that allows you to perform the following actions:
    • Export the whiteboard.
    • Import a whiteboard.
    • Clear the current whiteboard.
    • Clear all whiteboards.
    • Allow all participants to move objects on the whiteboard.
  • Export the whiteboard.
    • This option allows you to download the whiteboard. The whiteboard appears in the Downloads section. Later, the Import Whiteboard option allows you to reuse the old whiteboard.
  • Importing a whiteboard.
    • This option lets you reuse a previous whiteboard. 
  • Delete the current whiteboard.
  • Delete all whiteboards.
  • Allow all participants to move objects on the whiteboard.

Would you like to use the whiteboard outside the Kaltura Live Room, for example, to post on Brightspace? A solution is to take a screenshot.

  • The 'X' icon closes the Whiteboard for all participants. On the left side of the bar you will see the following:
    • The 'Active board' is the board you are currently working on.
    • With the 'Add board' button, a new Whiteboard can be added.

Please refer to this link for a detailed explanation of all Whiteboard functionalities.

Desktop sharing

Sharing your screen is a useful option when you want to show something to participants during the Live Room that is not easily displayed from the available tools.

To start sharing your screen:

  • Click the Desktop share in the Tools window.
  • Click Start Screen Share.
    • Optionally, uncheck Stream screen share in HD to improve functionality with a poorer Internet connection.

Desktop sharing in Windows with Chrome

In the pop-up window below there are three tabs visible:

  • Your Entire Screen: Share the entire screen.
  • Application Window: Only share the window of the program.
  • Chrome Tab: Share a specific tab in Chrome.

Once you've singed what you want to share, click share.

Desktop sharing op een Mac

Desktop sharing on a Mac should follow these steps:

In the case of Mac OS X Catalina or later, you will get the pop-up:

  • Select Open System Preferences
  • Select Security & Privacy
  • Select the Privacy tab.
  • Scroll through the left column until Screen Recording is visible.
  • In the Screen Recording section, check the box that matches Google Chrome and/or Firefox.

 When you're done sharing your screen, go back to the Live Room.

  • Then click Stop Desktop or the button.
    • The Stop Desktop button stops sharing the selected and displays the pop-up selection again.
    •  The X button will stop desktop sharing completely.

Caution: When sharing your screen in iOS no system audio is shared. Third-party software is required to share system audio.

Quizzes

The Quizzes option offers the possibility to create quizzes in the Live Room.

  • Click Quiz.
  • Click the button to create a quiz.

The following options are visible in the window:

  • Enter quiz name input field.
  • Enter question 1 input field.
  • The attachment icon allows a file to be added to the quiz.


  • The Question type top-down menu that allows questions to be added:
    • Multiple Choice: Multiple Choice Questions.
    • Multiple Answers: There is the possibility to have more than 1 correct answer.
    • Open Question: Open questions, cannot be assessed automatically.
  • Fill in the field. 
  • Click Save.

You can also edit or delete the quiz:

  • To edit a quiz: Select the quiz and click on the pencil icon.
  • To delete a quiz: Select the quiz and click on the trash icon.
  • To add more quizzes, press the button.

After adding one or more quizzes to the list, there are the following options:

  • Add to playlist.
  • Start Quiz.
  • Close.

After taking the quiz, the results will be available in the Results tab.

Video Library

The Video Library option allows videos to be added to the Live Room. These videos must already have been uploaded in the Gallery or My Media.

  • The available videos can be searched via the search field:
  • Select a video and click the Add to Playlist button to add it to the playlist or play button to play the video instantly.
  •  When you're done adding videos to your playlist, click Close.

Interactieve video's, multi-stream video's en 360 video's are not supported in the Live Room. 

Recording

With the Recording option, it is possible to make a recording in the Live Room. In the pop-up window, there is the possibility to set a recording time.

  • The choices of recording time are:
    • Stop recording manually
    • 30 minutes
    • 1 hour
    • 2 hours
    • 3 hours
  • It can take up to 3 minutes before a recording starts! Please bear this in mind when recording from the Live Room.


During the recording, the following bars can be displayed:

  • 'Recording has started'.
  • 'Recording will start momentarily'.
  • 'Recording is finishing and uploading'.
  • 'File has been processed, and you can view recording inside recordings folder'.

 As soon as the recording begins, a recording timer appears in the toolbar.

When the set recording time is almost over, a notification appears under the toolbar with the option to extend the recording by 30 minutes.

At the end of the session, you can stop recording by clicking on the recording timer. A pop-up window will open where you can stop recording.

  • Click Stop Recording to stop recording.
  • As soon as the recording is stopped and processed, the message 'Recording completed!' appears. The recording can be found on your channel.

Breakout

In a Breakout Room, all participants can be placed in a separate room and can independently hold small sessions.

The number of Breakout Rooms is limited to 30 rooms, over which the number of participants is divided.

 To create Breakout Rooms, first, click Tools, and then click Breakout.

Participants can be manually dragged to the different Rooms or the system automatically assigns them based on the number of spaces you want to divide them between:

  • Click Clear assignment to unassign rooms participants.
  • Click + Add room to add more rooms.
  •  It is possible to set a time limit for Breakout Room sessions by checking the Set time limit box.
  • Click Breakout to start a Breakout session, or click Close to cancel the process.

Breakout room permissions

In the top right corner, you will see the Settings button. When you click on it, you will see the following options:

  • Chat: turns on or off the chats in the breakout rooms.
  • Notes: this enables participants to take notes via the whiteboard.
  • Share Screen: Enable the option to share the screen.
  • Play Shared Files: Allows participants to play documents in the breakout room.
  • Manager Files: allows access to upload, rename and delete documents.
  • YouTube: allows participants to share YouTube clips.
  • Annotations: allow participants to make notes on documents.
  • Whiteboard: allows participants to draw together on the whiteboard.
  • Record: makes it possible to make a recording of the breakout room.
  • Room Switching: allows participants to move between different breakout rooms.

Functionalities Breakout room

The Breakout Room has many of the functionalities that the joint Live Room also has, namely:

  • Share documents
  • Tools
    • YouTube
    • Whiteboard
    • Desktop sharing
    • Recording

During the session, a participant can call the host with the Call Instructor button:

When a participant has called the host, the host receives the following message on the screen:

Click Join to go to the relevant Breakout Room. Once in a Breakout Room, there is the option to go to other Breakout Rooms via a pull-down menu:

Messages, files, or media can be broadcasted to all Breakout Rooms in the session. This option appears at the top of the browser window in the blue bar.

  • Click Broadcast to all rooms.

Select what you want to broadcast:

  • Message
  • Files
  • Media

If you want to broadcast a message, you can do so on the following screen:

When broadcasting a file, the screen looks like this:

Play in breakout rooms becomes clickable if at least one file is selected.

If you want to broadcast media, you will see the media pop-up that allows you to choose media from the Gallery or My Media. Click Play to play the selected media in all Breakout rooms.

 To end a Breakout session:

    • Click Return to Breakout Manager.

If you haven't been to a Breakout Room, you'll see the following bar:

    • Click Manage Breakout.
    • In the next window, click End Breakout.

After a Breakout session has stopped, the shared files will be stored and can be retrieved in the Files tab.

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