Teach a Class

Share Your Screen

Shar­ing screens is a default per­mis­sion for hosts and mod­er­a­tors, and can also be cus­tom enabled for par­tic­i­pants on an indi­vid­ual basis. With this fea­ture, you can choose to share your entire screen, a select win­dow or select tab, whether you are a view­er in the room or already a pre­sen­ter on stage.

  1. Click the screen share icon on the bot­tom tool­bar. A screen shar­ing source menu will dis­play with options of what you can share:
  • Entire Screen - Shares what­ev­er is dis­played on your screen, and gives the most flex­i­bil­i­ty to move between win­dows and appli­ca­tions while main­tain­ing your screen share. If you have mul­ti­ple screens, you can choose which screen to share. 
  • Win­dow - Select which par­tic­u­lar appli­ca­tion or win­dow you’d like to share. Once shared, the appli­ca­tion or win­dow can’t be hid­den or min­i­mized.
  • Tab - Choose a spe­cif­ic tab with­in your cur­rent brows­er.
  1. Click on the spe­cif­ic screen, win­dow, or tab that you’d like to share. 

You can also enable share sys­tem audio at the bot­tom of the screen shar­ing source menu (Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge browsers only). This will share the audio along with the visu­al of what you are shar­ing.

NOTE: Not all browsers allow sys­tem audio shar­ing. It’s only sup­port­ed when shar­ing a brows­er tab or appli­ca­tion win­dow, and is cur­rent­ly avail­able in Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge.

To see what shows while screen shar­ing or for more detailed infor­ma­tion about this took, vis­it the Share you screen in a Kaltura Room in Video Por­tal page on the Kaltura Knowl­edge Cen­ter web­site or view this PDF.

Share Media (Video, Presentation or Image)

  1. Click the Share icon on the bot­tom tool­bar. Three options dis­play for shar­ing media: Video, Pre­sen­ta­tion or Image.
  1. Select­ing one of the three options dis­plays the Select a media win­dow, which has the fol­low­ing fea­tures.
  1. Search — Use to search for a spe­cif­ic media item in the media man­ag­er. 
  2. Name / Cre­at­ed At — Use to sort media items accord­ing to name / cre­ation date.
  3. Import from YouTube (vis­i­ble only for Video) — Click to import a YouTube video.
  4. Upload - Click to upload a video from your com­put­er.
  5. Present — Click to add the media to the sto­ry­board and start pre­sent­ing it imme­di­ate­ly (the Select a media win­dow will close auto­mat­i­cal­ly).

For more detailed infor­ma­tion vis­it the Scene man­ag­er in Kaltura Rooms web­page on the Kaltura Knowl­edge Cen­ter site or view this PDF.

Breakout Sessions

Break­out rooms are a great tool for divid­ing par­tic­i­pants into small­er groups. They enhance col­lab­o­ra­tion in activ­i­ties like work­shops, group assign­ments, or focused dis­cus­sions.

  1. Click the three dots on the bot­tom tool­bar and select Break­out. If you have already cre­at­ed rooms, a pop-up will ask if you’d like to use your exist­ing rooms or cre­ate new rooms:
  1. When cre­at­ing new rooms, you’ll see the Start break­out rooms win­dow dis­play with options to:
  • Set num­ber of break­out rooms — up to 15 rooms
  • Assign par­tic­i­pants — up to 50 par­tic­i­pants per room
  • Set rooms time lim­it (option­al) — after the time lim­it, the break­out rooms close and all par­tic­i­pants are sent back to the main room.

Click Con­tin­ue. The Break­out Rooms dash­board will dis­play.

  1. The dash­board is where you can pre­pare and man­age your break­out ses­sion. Here you can add, rename and delete rooms, as well as assign par­tic­i­pants in a vari­ety of ways, among oth­er func­tions.
  1. Search par­tic­i­pants — Typ­ing two or more char­ac­ters trig­gers a search for par­tic­i­pants in rel­e­vant rooms. Rooms with match­ing par­tic­i­pants will show up.
  2. Time lim­it — Time will dis­play if set in the Start break­out rooms win­dow. You can click on the text to adjust the time lim­it.
  3. Set­tings menu — When clicked, dis­plays a drop-down menu with options to enable / dis­able a time lim­it, as well as set per­mis­sions for all par­tic­i­pants regard­ing the break­out rooms.
  4. Close dash­board — Click to exit the win­dow.
  5. Start break­out — Click to launch the ses­sion and start the timer.
  6. Main room pan­el — Dis­plays the count and names of par­tic­i­pants in the main room, along with the stage view. Hosts are auto­mat­i­cal­ly includ­ed in the main room list.
  7. Shuf­fle — Ran­dom­ly re-assigns par­tic­i­pants to dif­fer­ent rooms.
  8. Move to next room — This acti­vates a “Round Robin” switch, mov­ing par­tic­i­pants sequen­tial­ly from one room to the next. This is use­ful, for exam­ple, when hosts want to dis­trib­ute top­ics among rooms with par­tic­i­pants cov­er­ing all top­ics.
  9. Break­out rooms pan­el — This dis­plays the names and num­ber of the par­tic­i­pants in each room*, as well as an + Add Room but­ton on the top right to add more rooms.
  • NOTE: The list of par­tic­i­pants in each room is ini­tial­ly based on how you set them up in the Start break­out rooms win­dow. How­ev­er, you can also reas­sign par­tic­i­pants by drag­ging their names, indi­vid­u­al­ly or by mul­ti-selec­tion, into dif­fer­ent rooms. 
  • You can also change the room’s name or delete a room by hov­er­ing over a break­out room, and click­ing the three- dots menu. A drop-down menu gives options to rename or delete a room.
  1. Assign Auto­mat­i­cal­ly or Gath­er back every­one - The but­ton changes based on where par­tic­i­pants are: In the main room, it dis­plays “Assign Auto­mat­i­cal­ly” to send them to break­out rooms. In break­out rooms, it shows “Gath­er back every­one” to return them to the main room.

Once the break­out rooms’ ses­sion starts, a man­age­ment ban­ner is dis­played on top of the host’s screen. The ban­ner’s options allow easy access to all the main break­out room man­ager’s func­tions.

Top control bar

  1. Broad­cast — This allows for announce­ments to be broad­cast­ed from the main room to all break­out rooms. When you click the blue Broad­cast but­ton, you can choose to type your mes­sage and send it out. You can also broad­cast from the dash­board.
  2. Remain­ing Time — This shows the time remain­ing to the cur­rent break­out rooms’ ses­sion, if a timer was set. You can click on ‘Remain­ing time’ to adjust the amount of time left. You can also adjust the remain­ing time in the dash­board.
  3. Room selec­tion — This will dis­play the name of the room you are in cur­rent­ly. You can move around rooms by click­ing the name of the room on the ban­ner, which will a dis­play pop-up win­dow to select a room to join.
  4. Alert bell — Par­tic­i­pants in their break­out rooms can call a mod­er­a­tor, which will send the mod­er­a­tor a noti­fi­ca­tion with a but­ton to join the room, and will also dis­play a bell icon, indi­cat­ing to Open dash­board (as shown in the image below).The noti­fi­ca­tion will dis­ap­pear after a few min­utes, but you can still click the bell icon to open the dash­board and see who called.
  5. Open dash­board — Click to man­age the rooms with the fea­tures of the dash­board win­dow. 
  1. End break­out — Click  to send a count­down to par­tic­i­pants until the break­out rooms end and all are returned to the main room. You will also be asked if you’d like to keep the rooms with all their set­tings for the next time.

Dashboard

While the break­out rooms are in ses­sion, the dash­board user inter­face dis­plays the fol­low­ing: 

  1. Broad­cast — Click the blue Broad­cast but­ton to send a broad­cast out to all the rooms
  2. Remain­ing time — Click on ‘Remain­ing time’ to dis­play a drop-down menu to adjust the remain­ing time in the break­out rooms.
  3. End break­out — Here you can end the break­out rooms, like you can in the ban­ner.
  4. Switch rooms — Drag your­self or oth­er par­tic­i­pants to dif­fer­ent rooms. Upon mov­ing par­tic­i­pants to anoth­er room, they will see a count­down and then will be moved to their new assign­ment. Upon mov­ing your­self to anoth­er room, you will see your new­ly assigned room when you close the dash­board.
  5. Respond to calls — Par­tic­i­pants who called a mod­er­a­tor will be high­light­ed in blue in their rooms on the dash­board. You can click the X on the blue high­light­ed row to dis­miss the noti­fi­ca­tion there, and then you can join the room to respond to the call.

For more detailed infor­ma­tion vis­it the Break­out Ses­sions web­page on the Kaltura Knowl­edge Cen­ter site.

Record a Session

When record­ing ses­sions in Kaltura Room, it’s impor­tant to under­stand how record­ings are cap­tured, stored, and accessed. Below is an overview of key points, includ­ing record­ing qual­i­ty, auto-upload behav­ior, and where record­ings are saved.

Where are Recordings Saved?

  • Record­ings are saved as .mp4 files at 1080p
  • Com­plet­ed record­ings are auto­mat­i­cal­ly added to the Record­ings fold­er in your room’s Media and Files stor­age, which can be accessed from the three dots menu on the tool­bar. Each record­ing file is named by default with the fol­low­ing con­ven­tion: Rec — date and time­stamp — meet­ing title. 

Start Recording

  1. Click the three dots menu.
  2. Click Record. A con­fir­ma­tion mes­sage dis­plays: Do you want to start record­ing? 
  1. Click Start Record­ing (or Can­cel).

Record­ing may take a minute to ini­tial­ize. A noti­fi­ca­tion dis­plays on every­one’s screens: Record­ing will start momen­tar­i­ly, please wait. Then a noti­fi­ca­tion dis­plays for every­one: This ses­sion is being record­ed.

While record­ing, all par­tic­i­pants will see the record­ing indi­ca­tor on the bot­tom left of their screen. Hosts and mod­er­a­tors will also see a counter and a square icon for stop­ping the record­ing. 

End a Recording

  1. Click the square on the bot­tom left of the screen OR click on the three dots menu and click Stop record­ing. A con­fir­ma­tion mes­sage dis­plays. 
  1. Click the red Stop record­ing but­ton. 

A noti­fi­ca­tion dis­plays Record­ing end­ed, start­ing upload. (Par­tic­i­pants will see a noti­fi­ca­tion that the “record­ing has com­plet­ed.”) After a minute or two, a noti­fi­ca­tion dis­plays that your record­ing file is avail­able. 

For more detailed infor­ma­tion vis­it the Record your see­sion in Kaltura Room web­page on the Kaltura Knowl­edge Cen­ter site or view this PDF.

Recording Guidelines for NIC Instructors

These guide­lines help instruc­tors use web con­fer­enc­ing plat­forms, like Kaltura Vir­tu­al Class­room, respon­si­bly when record­ing class­es. The goal is to ensure stu­dents under­stand why record­ings are made, how they are used, and how long they will be avail­able.

Key points:

  • Record­ings are legal­ly jus­ti­fi­able under Human Rights leg­is­la­tion and the duty to accom­mo­date but should be done trans­par­ent­ly and respect­ful­ly.
  • Instruc­tors must inform stu­dents, via course out­line, Bright­space, or at the start of class, about:
    • The rea­sons for record­ing (See Sec­tion A)
    • How record­ings are stored, accessed, and delet­ed (See Sec­tion B)
    • Expect­ed respect­ful con­duct regard­ing record­ings (See Sec­tion C)
  • Stu­dents should be remind­ed at the start of each class and giv­en a chance to ask ques­tions. (See Sec­tion C)
  • Addi­tion­al guid­ance includes tips for man­ag­ing record­ings and a stu­dent-friend­ly ver­sion for course mate­ri­als. (See Sec­tions C and D)

Kaltura Vir­tu­al Class­room allows class and meet­ing record­ings, but not all ses­sions need to be record­ed.

Appro­pri­ate rea­sons for record­ing include:

  • Shar­ing with stu­dents who can­not attend
  • Pro­vid­ing record­ings or tran­scripts for stu­dents with DALS accom­mo­da­tions, ensur­ing use is restrict­ed to per­son­al learn­ing
  • Sup­port­ing stu­dents with Eng­lish as an Addi­tion­al Lan­guage
  • Offer­ing record­ings for all stu­dents to review and study

Inap­pro­pri­ate rea­sons include:

  • Shar­ing record­ings out­side the class or on social media
  • Tak­ing atten­dance or track­ing par­tic­i­pa­tion
  • Cre­at­ing ref­er­ence mate­ri­als for future teach­ing

Reten­tion and stor­age:

  • Rec­om­mend­ed prac­tice: Delete all record­ings after the last exam date or the end of the class to reduce the risk of inap­pro­pri­ate use. If you wish to keep record­ings, down­load and save them to your NIC OneDrive.
  • Record­ings are sub­ject to NIC’s two-year data reten­tion pol­i­cy. Record­ings with no plays that are old­er than two years will be auto­mat­i­cal­ly delet­ed.
  • Con­sid­er how long you want to keep record­ings and com­mu­ni­cate this to your stu­dents.

Instruc­tors should pro­vide stu­dents with three key pieces of infor­ma­tion: notice, knowl­edge, and respect­ful use. Dis­cuss these with stu­dents, allow ques­tions dur­ing class, and offer an option to fol­low up pri­vate­ly via email.

  • Notice: Inform stu­dents that the class or meet­ing will be record­ed, explain when and why, and allow for ques­tions.
  • Knowl­edge: Explain how record­ings work, who con­trols them, where they are stored (Mon­tre­al, Que­bec, Cana­da), how long they are kept, and how stu­dents can access them. Empha­size that only the instruc­tor can start and stop record­ings and share links.
  • Respect­ful Use: Stu­dents should use record­ings only for learn­ing, not share links or upload to social media, and avoid uneth­i­cal or unpro­fes­sion­al behav­ior.

NOTE: You might want to chat with stu­dents about using the back­ground blur to pro­vide more pri­va­cy or hav­ing them under­stand why you want their video cam­eras on.

Before class:

  • Remind stu­dents that the class will be record­ed and explain the rea­sons.
  • Share pri­va­cy tips, such as blur­ring back­grounds, turn­ing off video, or chang­ing dis­play names.

Dur­ing class:

  • Repeat reminders about the record­ing and pri­va­cy tips.
  • Start the record­ing and explain fea­tures like live tran­scripts and Meet­ing High­lights.
  • Stop the record­ing and remind stu­dents when they will receive the link and how to use it respect­ful­ly.

After class:

  • Remind stu­dents not to share the link pub­licly, upload it else­where, or post it on social media.
  • Make the record­ing avail­able via a pri­vate loca­tion (e.g., Bright­space) and share the link.

NIC Guide­lines for Record­ing Class­es: For Stu­dents

Kaltura Vir­tu­al Class­room pro­vides a record­ing fea­ture to cap­ture a class or meet­ing. The fol­low­ing guide­lines are pro­vid­ed to explain the rea­sons for the class record­ing, how the record­ings are to be used and how long the record­ings will be saved/made avail­able.

A. Rea­sons for Record­ing a Class

Your instruc­tor may choose to use this fea­ture for one or more of the fol­low­ing rea­sons:

  • To share with stu­dents unable to attend the class
  • To assist in the accom­mo­da­tion of stu­dents with cer­tain dis­abil­i­ties or for stu­dents with Eng­lish as an Addi­tion­al Lan­guage
  • To pro­vide a record of the class for all stu­dents to use for study­ing and learn­ing

B. Pro­vid­ing Notice and Knowl­edge 

Instruc­tors are asked to share two pieces of infor­ma­tion pri­or to any record­ing:

  1. Notice – your instruc­tor will let you know that they are going to record the class or meet­ing and explain the rea­son.
  2. Knowl­edge – your instruc­tor will explain how the record­ings will work, where the record­ings are stored, how long they will be stored and how the record­ings will be made avail­able to you.

If you do not wish to be record­ed (visu­al­ly), you have the choice to blur the video back­ground, turn off your video and/or change your name in the Peo­ple list. Chat is not record­ed. 

C. Length of Time Before Delet­ing Record­ing

Your instruc­tor will share with you how long the record­ings will be saved. In most cas­es, all record­ings will be delet­ed after the last exam date for the term or end of the class.

D.  Respect­ful Use of Video

All stu­dents are expect­ed to be respon­si­ble and respect­ful when it comes to record­ed mate­r­i­al. This includes:

  1. Not shar­ing that link or the record­ing with any­one else.
  2. Only using the record­ing for intend­ed pur­pos­es (to sup­port your learn­ing).
  3. Not upload­ing the record­ing or putting the video or link on social media.
  4. Not engag­ing in any uneth­i­cal, unpro­fes­sion­al or dis­re­spect­ful uses of the video.

If you have any oth­er ques­tions about record­ings, please con­tact your instruc­tor.

Drive Engagement with Kaltura Room Tools & Interactions

The Announce­ments inter­ac­tion lets you share impor­tant updates or a Call to Action (CTA). To send an Announce­ment fol­low the steps below.

  1. Click Announce­ment to begin.
  2. (Option­al) Enter a title for your announce­ment.
  3. Type your announce­ment text.
  4. (Option­al) Click + Add CTA but­ton to include a call-to-action but­ton. Addi­tion­al options dis­play.
  5. Enter a label for your CTA but­ton and the URL users will be direct­ed to when they click it. To remove the CTA, click the trash­can icon.
  6. Decide whether to save as draft, pub­lish now, or sched­ule.

The Announce­ment pops up in the bot­tom left cor­ner of the screen.

Gath­er and send imme­di­ate feed­back by deploy­ing a Crowd Vote, a Crowd Reac­tion or a Rat­ing Scale inter­ac­tion.

Crowd Vote

Crowd Reaction

Rating Scale

  1. Click Crowd vote to begin.
  2. Replace the default text with your ques­tion or state­ment.
  3. Choose your crowd vote emo­ji.
  4. Decide whether to share results with atten­dees.
  5. (Option­al) Set a dura­tion for how long the vote stays active.
  6. Decide whether to save as draft, pub­lish now, or sched­ule. 
  1. Click Crowd reac­tion.
  2. Hov­er over the desired crowd reac­tion to high­light it, and a Send now but­ton will appear.
  3. Click to send the crowd reac­tion.
  1. Click Rat­ing scale.
  2. Replace the default text with your ques­tion or state­ment.
  3. Choose your rat­ing scale emo­ji.
  4. Decide whether to share results with atten­dees.
  5. (Option­al) Set a dura­tion for how long the rat­ing stays active. 
  6. Decide whether to save as draft, pub­lish now, or sched­ule. 

Use Open-end­ed Ques­tions or Word Cloud to expand think­ing and draw out key insights.

Open-ended Question

  1. Click Open-end­ed ques­tion to begin.
  2. Type your ques­tion in the text field.
  3. Decide whether to share results with atten­dees.
  4. (Option­al) Set a dura­tion for how long the word cloud stays active. 
  5. Decide whether to save as draft, pub­lish now, or sched­ule. 

Word Cloud

  1. Click Word cloud.
  2. Type your ques­tion in the Ques­tion to audi­ence field (up to 80 char).
  3. (Option­al) Set a dura­tion for how long the word cloud stays active. 
  4. Decide whether to save as draft, pub­lish now, or sched­ule. 
  5. Once results are in, they are dis­played to all in the Feed sub-tab of the Live stage tab.

The inter­ac­tion pops up in the bot­tom left cor­ner of the screen and in the Feed.

Polls

  1. Click Poll ques­tion.
  2. Type your ques­tion (up to 300 chars).
  3. Enter up to five answer options. Click + Add answer choice to add more options. (To remove an answer, hov­er over it and click the trash­can icon.)
  4. Choose whether to share results with atten­dees or enable mul­ti­ple answers.
  5. (Option­al) Set a dura­tion for how long the poll stays active.
  6. Decide whether to save as draft, pub­lish now, or sched­ule. 

The inter­ac­tion pops up in the bot­tom left cor­ner of the screen and in the Feed.

Quizzes

  1. Click Quiz ques­tion.
  2. Type your ques­tion (up to 300 chars) and answers (up to five total).
  3. Click + Add answer to add more. (To remove an answer, hov­er over the answer and click the trash­can icon.)

(Option­al) Allow mul­ti­ple cor­rect answers by click­ing the check mark next to each cor­rect option. At least one must be cor­rect.

  1. Choose whether to dis­play the cor­rect answer or share results with atten­dees.
  2. (Option­al) Set a dura­tion for how long the quiz stays active.
  3. Decide whether to save as draft, pub­lish now, or sched­ule.

The inter­ac­tion pops up in the bot­tom left cor­ner of the screen and in the Feed.

Surveys

  1. Click Sur­vey.
  2. The sur­vey defaults to the ses­sion name (max 150 char­ac­ters). To change it, hov­er over the name, click it, and type a cus­tom title.
  3. To cus­tomize the intro­duc­tion, hov­er over the default intro text (“Please take a moment to take a quick sur­vey”) and click Edit.
  4. Type your intro text and a label for the sur­vey start but­ton, then click Save.

Add Questions

  1. Click + Add ques­tion to begin. You can add up to 10 ques­tions.
  2. Choose the ques­tion type. 

Kaltura’s white­board is a ver­sa­tile tool for meet­ings, lessons, and col­lab­o­ra­tive brain­storm­ing. It’s designed for easy, real-time inter­ac­tion and helps increase engage­ment through visu­al expla­na­tions and active par­tic­i­pa­tion.

Using the Whiteboard

Display the Whiteboard

Click the Share Con­tent icon or the three dots on the bot­tom tool­bar and select White­board. The white­board dis­plays.

  • NOTE: Only one white­board can be active at a time. Mul­ti­ple white­boards can­not be opened or dis­played simul­ta­ne­ous­ly

Whiteboard Tools

  • Cur­sor: Use the cur­sor tool to select drawn objects then move them, resize them, or edit them.
  • Laser Arrow: Use the laser arrow to enable your par­tic­i­pants to track your cur­sor as it moves along the white­board. Each par­tic­i­pant has their own laser point­er iden­ti­fied by their first name to help you iden­ti­fy who is using the laser point­er.
  • Writ­ing Tool: Use the pen­cil or high­light tool to anno­tate or high­light items on the white­board. You can choose the colour and thick­ness.
  • Shapes: Choose a square, tri­an­gle, cir­cle or line from the menu, make it sol­id or out­line, and click and drag your cur­sor to draw the shape. You also have the option to change the colour of the marks you draw.
  • Text: Click where you want your text, type your text and click out­side the box to post it. Edit by dou­ble-click­ing the text box. You can cre­ate click­able links by typ­ing or past­ing a web address.
  • Images: You can upload to the Media Gallery or select pre­vi­ous­ly uploaded images by click­ing the images icon.
  • Undo/Redo: Click the undo / redo arrows to undo or redo pre­vi­ous actions. Undo and Redo apply to the cur­rent ses­sion only. You can­not undo or redo marks from pre­vi­ous ses­sions.

3 Dots Menu

  • Clear White­board: Click the 3 dots menu at the end of the tool­bar. Select Clear white­board. The white­board clears imme­di­ate­ly.
  • White­board View: Two back­grounds can be applied to the white­board: Line grid and Dot grid.
  • Col­lab­o­rate: Click the three dots menu at the end of the tool­bar. Tog­gle on Allow par­tic­i­pants to col­lab­o­rate.

Zoom, Delete and Dismiss

  • Zoom: The zoom in / out con­trol is at the bot­tom right of the screen. Click + to zoom in and - to zoom out.
  • Delete: Instruc­tors / mod­er­a­tors can delete any marks drawn on the white­board by using the cur­sor tool to select the object you want to delete and click­ing delete on your key­board.
  • Dis­miss: To dis­miss the white­board, click Stop pre­sent­ing in the top right of the stage.  Dis­miss­ing the white­board does not clear it. The white­board anno­ta­tions are saved in the room until erased.

For more detailed infor­ma­tion vis­it the Use Kaltur­a’s white­board in Kaltura Rooms web­page on the Kaltura Knowl­edge Cen­ter site or view this PDF.