How to Use Samba Live’s Content Library for Online Learning

Have you ever heard that plans are useless, but planning is necessary?

Any educator who has ever had to deal with a live audience has experienced their lessons not going as they had planned. These are just the facts of life. There are a multitude of reasons why something can deviate from what was planned for the online learning course.

Samba Live is here to help. We have a content library that allows educators to much more easily prepare for and execute their presentations to their classrooms as an integral part of scheduling their lessons.

Table of contents:

• Samba Live’s content library functionality
• Webapps for greater virtual collaboration
• Best practices for utilising the full potential of the content library
  
  

Samba Live’s content library functionality

The Samba Live content library is a tool that allows educators to prepare and share content with their students before, during, or after the online lecture.

Content can be anything!

Files like .pdfs can be content, videos, and bespoke file types like CAD drawings can also be delivered through the content library, and the whole web app can also be served right up in the Samba Live content library.

Samba Live’s content library features:

1. Upload persistent material
2. Easily distribute the content while out of a meeting
3. Embed separate web applications

Webapps for greater virtual collaboration

Educators frequently have to work with very specialised web applications, and then have the technical challenge of trying to get their whole group of students to follow along step-by-step perfectly with instructions in order to get anywhere with the lesson when working with specialised software.

Samba Live eliminates this awkward and unproductive technical challenge by allowing educators to embed live web apps directly into their online lectures through the Samba Live Content Library.

For example, if you are teaching something complicated, like CAD software to your students, and a web UI is available for that particular CAD software, then it is easy to have the actual live web app in your lecture that students can interact with.

• Productivity tools (Google Sheets, Docs & Slides, online versions of Microsoft Word, Excel & PowerPoint)
• Note-taking apps and databases (Airtable, Notion, Evernote, OneNote)
• Project management software (Trello, Jira, Asana)
• Marketing software (Facebook Ads Manager, Buffer)
• CRM platforms (HubSpot, Marketo, Pipedrive)
• And many other web apps or build your own.

Using popular productivity applications like Google Docs, and Microsoft Office educators will be able to deliver a hands-on experience to their students during online lectures.

By incorporating the ability to embed web applications straight into Samba Live, we eliminate many potential friction points where technical difficulties could potentially derail online lessons.

Leveraging this allows educators to not only smooth out their live lecture presentations but also lightens their planning workload.

There are simply less moving parts to manage, and being able to interact directly with web applications rather than just sharing screens is invaluable.

Best practices for utilising the full potential of the content library

1. Prepare material rather than just plan what material to use

A content library is a great tool for lesson preparation. Rather than just having a plan for how lessons should go, the content library enables educators to be actively prepared for their lessons by essentially bringing resources with them beforehand.

Let’s look at two examples of sharing a file like a document.

1. One way we can do that is by linking the online course material in chat.
2. The other way we can accomplish this is with the content library.

Both methods deliver the document to the students, but they do it in different ways. With linking in chat, educators have to have the file with them, and then stop the lesson in order to link the file in chat. Students all then have to receive the file and open it. If they weren’t paying attention right then, then it can be tricky to get everyone back on the same page when conducting the lesson.

Also, if a student isn’t present, then it becomes increasingly difficult to have to individually ensure that each of them receives every bit of the lesson materials that they need in order to continue the course.

Of course, it can be done this way. But the content library eliminates so many opportunities for corrections to need to be made.

2. Allow students to learn at their own pace

With the content library, the educator can upload the resource beforehand, and students can have these resources ready for them before the lesson begins. It’s like handing each attendee to the lesson a standard packet which already includes every resource or document they need for the lesson.

Students who did not attend still can receive the packet and can watch the recording of the live lesson.

They do not miss out– and some students who are particularly sharp can learn at their natural pace this way after just being handed the materials to learn with.  

3. Allow for more automation and hands-on learning

Best of all, all of this happens automatically. Educators who utilise the content library can quickly and efficiently do more than planning for a lesson; they become totally prepared for the lesson.

There are fewer friction points for the teachers and much more flexibility for the students when properly utilising these tools.

4. Totally transform the teaching experience

In many ways, educators look at online learning as a necessary burden that does not hold up to the quality of in-person education. This is not true. Technology enables us to both teach and learn in our own unique ways by making resources that we can learn from available to us on our own terms.

The Samba Live content library is one such tool that extends the horizon for human learning by transforming planning into preparation for educators and putting the power of heuristics into the hands of students.

Book a live demo with a Samba Live technical sales representative today to experience the difference for yourself.