Lecture Capture Solutions

Effective lecture capture begins before you press Record.

Identify what students should know or be able to do after viewing the lecture and organize the presentation around those learning objectives. When possible, divide longer topics into smaller, focused sections that students can easily navigate and review.

As you prepare your materials, consider:

• What information must students understand?
• Which concepts would benefit from a visual example or demonstration?
• Where could students pause and check their understanding?
• Are important visuals explained both visually and verbally?
• Can students access the important information in more than one way?

Design with UDL in Mind

Universal Design for Learning encourages instructors to anticipate differences among learners rather than addressing barriers only after they occur.

Lecture capture can support UDL by providing multiple means of representation, engagement, and interaction. A student may watch a demonstration, listen to an explanation, read captions or a transcript, revisit a difficult concept, or complete an interactive knowledge check.

Designing this flexibility into a lecture from the beginning can improve the learning experience for everyone.

Pre-Recorded Lectures: Microsoft PowerPoint

Microsoft PowerPoint is CTE's recommended tool for creating pre-recorded lectures.

PowerPoint allows instructors to combine slides, narration, video, digital ink, screen recordings, and annotations within a single presentation.

PowerPoint's Cameo feature can place the instructor's camera feed directly on individual slides. The camera window can be moved, resized, formatted, or removed as needed.

One major advantage of recording within PowerPoint is the ability to re-record individual slides without recreating the entire lecture.

Recommended Workflow

1. Prepare and review your presentation.
2. Run PowerPoint's Accessibility Checker and correct identified issues.
3. Add Cameo to slides where an instructor camera feed is useful.
4. Record narration, slide timings, annotations, demonstrations, and video.
5. Review the presentation and re-record individual slides when necessary.
6. Export the completed presentation as an MP4 video.
7. Upload the MP4 to Microsoft OneDrive.
8. Generate and review captions and the transcript.
9. Set appropriate viewing permissions.
10. Add a link to the recording in the appropriate D2L course module.

UDL Benefit

PowerPoint allows instructors to combine spoken explanation, text, visuals, demonstrations, annotations, and optional instructor video, providing multiple ways for students to encounter instructional information.

Live Classroom Capture: Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams is CTE's recommended tool for recording live classroom lectures, synchronous online classes, guest presentations, and other real-time instructional sessions.

Teams can capture audio, video, screen sharing, presentation content, and—when enabled—transcription.

Recommended Workflow

1. Schedule or create a Microsoft Teams meeting for the class session.
2. Join the meeting from the classroom computer or instructor device.
3. Confirm the correct microphone, camera, and presentation source.
4. Inform participants that the session will be recorded.
5. Select More actions → Record and transcribe and begin recording.
6. Stop the recording when the session ends.
7. Locate the recording through Teams, OneDrive, or SharePoint as appropriate.
8. Review the recording, transcript, captions, and sharing permissions.
9. Add a link to the recording in the appropriate D2L course module.

Recording Considerations

Before recording a live class, consider student privacy and participation. Students should know when recording begins, what will be recorded, and how the recording will be used.

Avoid recording private conversations, grades, advising information, or other sensitive information. When student participation is included in a recording, follow applicable university policies concerning privacy and access.

UDL Benefit

Recorded class sessions allow students to revisit instruction, review difficult concepts, and access course explanations at their own pace.

Microsoft OneDrive

The CTE recommends storing lecture recordings in Microsoft OneDrive rather than uploading large video files directly into D2L Brightspace.

OneDrive provides institutionally supported storage and works with Microsoft's video capabilities for playback, captions, transcripts, permissions, and sharing.

Instead of uploading a separate copy of a video into D2L, instructors can maintain the recording in Microsoft 365 and provide students with a link.

This approach can:

• Reduce duplicate storage.
• Simplify replacing or updating recordings.
• Provide centralized sharing and permission controls.
• Support captions and transcripts.
• Keep video management separate from the D2L course shell.

When supported video files are stored within Microsoft 365, Microsoft's video tools can generate captions and a transcript.

Automatically generated captions must be reviewed before the recording is published.

Automatic speech recognition can misinterpret names, technical terminology, acronyms, numbers, or specialized vocabulary. Instructors are responsible for correcting errors that affect the accuracy or meaning of the instructional content.

Captions and transcripts are important accessibility features, but they also benefit students who:

• Review lectures in noisy or quiet environments.
• Prefer reading while listening.
• Are unfamiliar with specialized terminology.
• Want to locate a specific part of a lecture.
• Need to revisit a difficult explanation.

Accessibility therefore supports more than compliance, it can improve the usability of course content for everyone.

Lecture capture does not have to be passive.

Instructors can use Microsoft Forms and H5P to incorporate questions, reflection, feedback, and active learning into lecture content.

Microsoft Forms

Microsoft Forms can be used with PowerPoint to incorporate polling, surveys, quizzes, and other response activities into presentations.

Forms can be useful for:

• Live polling.
• Knowledge checks.
• Surveys.
• Gathering feedback.
• Asking students to predict an outcome before continuing.
• Prompting discussion or reflection.

During a live presentation, instructors can use responses to identify areas of confusion and adjust instruction accordingly.

UDL Benefit

Forms provides another way for students to participate and gives instructors opportunities to gather feedback and check understanding during instruction.

H5P and Creator+

H5P, available through D2L Brightspace Creator+, can be used to transform recorded content into a more interactive learning experience.

Depending on the activity and instructional goal, instructors can incorporate:

• Interactive video.
• Multiple-choice questions.
• True/False questions.
• Fill-in-the-blank activities.
• Drag-and-drop activities.
• Reflection prompts.
• Question sets.
• Timelines.
• Course presentations.
• Summaries and knowledge checks.
• Links to supplemental resources.

Consider adding interaction at meaningful points rather than simply adding activities for their own sake. A well-placed question can ask students to retrieve information, make a prediction, reflect on an example, or check their understanding before continuing.

UDL Benefit

H5P supports active learning by providing students with opportunities to interact with content, receive feedback, and check their understanding as they learn.

Accessibility and Universal Design for Learning complement one another. Accessibility helps ensure instructional materials can be accessed by students with disabilities, while UDL encourages instructors to design flexible learning experiences that reduce barriers for a wider range of learners.

Before publishing a lecture, review the following.

PowerPoint and Visual Content

☐ Run the PowerPoint Accessibility Checker.
☐ Use descriptive, unique slide titles.
☐ Verify the reading order of slide content.
☐ Add appropriate alternative text to meaningful images.
☐ Use sufficient color contrast.
☐ Do not use color alone to communicate meaning.
☐ Use readable fonts and appropriate text sizes.
☐ Use descriptive hyperlink text.
☐ Explain important charts, diagrams, images, and other visual information during the presentation.

Recording

☐ Audio is clear and understandable.
☐ Important visual information is explained verbally.
☐ The recording is organized into manageable sections when appropriate.
☐ Unnecessary or sensitive information is not visible or recorded.

Captions and Transcript

☐ Captions are available.
☐ Automatically generated captions have been reviewed and corrected.
☐ The transcript is available and accurate.

Student Engagement

☐ Students have opportunities to check their understanding when appropriate.
☐ Polling, reflection, or interactive activities support the learning objective rather than distract from it.
☐ Supplemental resources are provided when they help students understand the material.

Publishing

☐ OneDrive or Microsoft 365 sharing permissions are correct.
☐ The D2L link has been tested.
☐ Students can access the recording using the intended permissions.

After the recording has been reviewed for quality, accessibility, captions, and permissions, add the recording to the appropriate D2L Brightspace course module.

Rather than uploading large MP4 files directly into D2L, CTE recommends maintaining the recording in Microsoft OneDrive and linking to it from D2L.

Before publishing the module, use the link yourself to verify that the recording opens correctly and that students have the appropriate permissions.