Help Choose a Virtual Classroom
Virtual Classroom Style
Choice One
All in One Classroom
Student Perspective:
In the L.E.A.R.N Surveying Classroom, the page provides a highly interactive and structured learning experience. Here's how it works from the student's point of view:
Joining the Virtual Classroom: Students can immediately see and interact with the instructor and other participants through a Jitsi Meet integration, visible within the meeting space on the page. The video meeting offers standard video conferencing features, enabling students to actively participate.
Participants List: A dedicated section on the left shows a list of participants with profile images, allowing students to easily identify who is present in the class.
Engagement Tools:
Whiteboard: Students can participate in collaborative sessions using the whiteboard, where the instructor and students can draw or annotate concepts, diagrams, or fieldwork sketches, fostering engagement.
Chat: The chat area allows students to exchange messages with the instructor and other students. They can ask questions or contribute to the discussion without interrupting the lecture.
Screen Sharing: Students have the ability to share their screen to demonstrate or ask questions about specific software or survey designs.
Course Material and Feedback: Students can click buttons to access course materials or leave feedback. When selecting "Course," a modal window opens an embedded page for additional learning resources. "Feedback" opens a form for students to submit their thoughts or concerns about the course.
Virtual Library: Students can search the Virtual Library for books related to surveying, using the search functionality. Results appear in real-time, giving them access to materials for further reading and study.
Performance Dashboard: The performance dashboard displays the student’s quiz scores, participation rate, and assignment completion progress. This provides students with a real-time snapshot of their learning progress.
Map Integration: There’s also a map embedded in the page, showing a surveying location marker. This feature is ideal for surveying students to visualize real-world geographical points or landmarks related to their coursework.
Instructor Perspective:
For the instructor, the L.E.A.R.N Surveying Classroom provides an all-in-one tool to teach and manage students effectively. Here's how it works from the instructor’s perspective:
Video Lecture Control: The instructor controls the virtual classroom using the Jitsi Meet interface. They can manage video and audio, share their screen, and moderate the meeting, ensuring a structured and interactive session with students.
Participant Monitoring: The instructor can monitor student participation through the Participants list, which displays everyone currently in the session. This helps the instructor gauge engagement and ensure that everyone is actively involved.
Engagement Tools:
Whiteboard: The instructor can use the whiteboard to visually explain concepts, demonstrate techniques, or annotate images. This tool is essential for surveying courses where diagrams and visual aids play a crucial role.
Screen Sharing and Recording: The instructor can share their screen to demonstrate surveying software, tools, or techniques. They can also start recording the session to provide students with a reviewable lesson after class.
Course and Feedback Management: The instructor has access to the Course and Feedback modals, allowing them to easily distribute course materials and gather feedback from students in real time.
Library and Book Search: The instructor can guide students through the Virtual Library, helping them find relevant books and resources for additional learning. The book search functionality allows them to quickly direct students to useful content.
Student Performance Tracking: The performance dashboard is visible to the instructor, showing important metrics like quiz scores and assignment completion rates. This allows the instructor to monitor student progress and provide timely feedback or support to students who may be falling behind.
Map Integration: The instructor can use the map to display key surveying locations or demonstrate geographic concepts related to surveying, providing an engaging, real-world context to theoretical lessons.
Overall, the L.E.A.R.N Surveying Classroom offers a comprehensive platform for both students and instructors, blending real-time video, interactive tools like whiteboards, and additional learning resources to create a fully immersive virtual surveying classroom experience.
Zoom Like Classroom
Student Perspective:
As a student, this virtual classroom page offers a simple, intuitive interface to join and participate in live online lessons. Key features include:
Joining a Meeting: The student can join a class by entering the meeting ID via a modal that appears after clicking the "Join Meeting" button. Once in, various features become available, such as video and audio controls, chat, whiteboard, and screen-sharing.
Video and Audio Control: Students can toggle their microphone and camera, making it easy to mute or stop their video as needed. The interface visually changes the buttons to indicate active or muted states.
Chat Interaction: Students can communicate with the instructor or peers via the chat panel. This panel can be toggled on or off as needed, providing a flexible space for text-based interactions.
Whiteboard and Course Materials: The page offers a whiteboard feature that the instructor might activate. The education panel allows students to view course materials (PDFs) by entering a course code, which the instructor provides.
Raise Hand: If students have questions, they can click the "Raise Hand" button, alerting the instructor without interrupting the session.
Health Check: The "Health Check" button opens a panel for the student to run a quick self-assessment via video. This could be part of a classroom feature related to participation or presence monitoring.
Instructor Perspective:
From the instructor’s point of view, the page provides a range of tools for managing and facilitating the virtual classroom, allowing smooth lesson delivery and student engagement. Key features include:
Meeting Control: The instructor has control over managing the meeting, including the ability to start, pause, and stop recordings, play recordings, or share screen content with students. The instructor can end the meeting when necessary.
Audio/Video Settings: The instructor can mute/unmute participants, control their video feed, and toggle between different settings for audio and video input/output.
Whiteboard Tool: The instructor can activate a whiteboard for collaborative drawing, adding another layer of interactive learning, particularly useful for explaining diagrams, sketches, or solving problems visually.
Course Material Management: Through the education panel, the instructor can share course materials with students by entering the course code. The materials, often PDFs, are visible to both the instructor and students in the viewer provided.
Chat and Participation: Instructors can manage the chat and see when students raise their hand. This helps control discussions and prioritize students who need attention during the lesson.
Health Check: The health check panel allows instructors to check in on students' status, potentially ensuring they're engaged and present in the class.
Both students and instructors have access to customizable settings through the settings panel, allowing adjustments to video, audio, and background blur for better video quality or privacy. The interface aims for a smooth, responsive experience, with easy-to-find controls and a focus on clarity.
Field Cast
Student Perspective:
As a student using Surveyor VidCaster by A to Zenith, this tool provides a feature-rich environment to engage in Continuing Education videos and walkthroughs for the Land Surveyors United community. Here's what the experience is like from the student's point of view:
Video Stream and Recording: The primary focus is on video-based learning, with a split-screen setup. The left side of the screen features a live video stream, where students can view the instructor or any shared content. Controls below the video allow students to toggle video, mute/unmute the microphone, and take screenshots of the current screen for later reference.
Screen Recording: Students can record the session by clicking the "Record" button. A small red dot appears, indicating the recording is in progress. The "Pause," "Stop," and "Play" buttons offer control over the recording, and students can download the recording afterward for review.
Interactive Browser: On the right side of the screen, there’s a built-in browser that students can use to visit predefined links, such as course material, examples, notes, calculators, quizzes, and chat pages. This allows for a seamless learning experience without needing to leave the tool. The "Home" button takes them back to the main learning hub, and students can also enter URLs to visit other relevant resources.
Geolocation and Mapping: The tool features a geolocation functionality. When the student clicks "Get Geolocation," their current location is displayed on a Mapbox map. The map provides several styles (streets, satellite, 3D terrain, globe), and the map interface can be closed when no longer needed. Additionally, the system geocodes their current location to show an address, adding real-world context to their learning.
Customization and Settings: The settings panel allows students to customize the interface by adding links to frequently used pages. They can input names and URLs for these links, which appear as buttons for easy access during learning sessions.
Instructor Perspective:
From the instructor's perspective, Surveyor VidCaster by A to Zenith serves as a comprehensive tool to deliver split-screen video lectures while allowing interactive control of resources and screen recordings. Here's how it works for instructors:
Live Video and Screen Sharing: The instructor's video feed is visible on the left side, with options to toggle video and microphone. The tool allows instructors to share their screen with students, making it ideal for walkthroughs of surveying software or online tutorials.
Session Recording: Instructors can record their sessions for later use by students. They can pause, stop, and play the recording, providing flexibility in how they manage the session. Recorded videos can be downloaded and shared with students after class.
Interactive Content Delivery: The built-in browser on the right side enables instructors to load course materials, examples, or quizzes directly for students. Predefined links, such as "COURSE," "EXAMPLES," and "QUIZ," allow instructors to quickly switch between learning modules without disrupting the session.
Geolocation Integration: Instructors can engage students with geospatial exercises by using the geolocation feature. For example, they can have students use the "Get Geolocation" button to visualize their position on the map and discuss real-world surveying applications. Instructors can adjust the map style based on the lesson, such as switching to satellite view for more detailed geographical context.
Customization and Resource Management: The instructor can customize the learning environment by adding specific links in the settings panel, providing students with easy access to additional resources, tools, or external pages. This makes it easier to manage a large amount of educational material during a session.
Interactive Tools: Additional tools like screenshot functionality allow instructors to capture the session’s key points and share them as part of their instructional material.
In summary, Surveyor VidCaster provides both students and instructors with a flexible, interactive platform for learning and delivering surveying-related Continuing Education. With tools for video streaming, recording, geolocation, and integrated browsing, it enhances the virtual classroom experience, making it suitable for both real-time learning and post-session review.