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Live video lets you interact with students in real time
On both YouTube Live and Instagram Live, people who watch the stream live are able to type comments and ask you questions in the chat. While you give the lecture, you can pause any time it’s convenient for you to read questions from the chat and answer them.
You can “take attendance” with a live video
This opportunity to interact with your students while you are on live video is incredibly useful. Since the usernames show up in the chat when someone comments, you can ask the students to watch the video live, and comment say twice so you can see which students watched live.
Make sure you have students tell you what their usernames are in advance of the live stream so you can identify them as most do not use their real names.
Instagram Live Video
The big advantage of Instagram live video is that it requires literally no set up. (see image on the left) Hit the “live” button in the Instagram Stories area and you’ll be streaming!
If you don’t want your Instagram live video to be public, you’ll need a private Instagram account, and allow your students to follow that private account. Then when you stream live, only your students can watch the video.
There are no options to add images, graphics, or text to an Instagram live video, so an Instagram live video can only show whatever your phone happens to be pointing at.
Instagram live videos disappear after 24 hours.
If you don’t want the video to disappear, add the live video to your Instagram Highlights, which will make that live video accessible for as long as you want.