Streamable Learning is new to me, and something that I'm excited our district is launching this fall. I would consider it less a digital platform and more of an opportunity to connect with dozens of experts from institutes and museums not just across the United States, but around the globe!
Summed up in an elevator pitch, Streamable Learning gives students an opportunity to take a virtual field trip via two ways: registering for a livestream event, or accessing a voluminous bank of archived webinar videos from the past.
While access is mainly teacher-centered, some options exist for student access to prior recordings; more on that below. It should be noted that teachers will need the Zoom program to participate in livestreams, and that Streamable Learning is a paid service. Licensing is available at the school or district level, and homeschooling options are also offered.
How does it work?
Streamable Learning can whitelist your domain's email address so that staff can self-create accounts, or it will work with Clever integration (which is what we use in Shelby). Remember, only teachers and staff need accounts.
As mentioned, there is a wide range of content partners working with Streamable Learning. Once logged in, you can browse them by clicking on the "Content Partners" tab at the top. You'll see the partners first grouped geographically, then listed alphabetically. Click on a partner to see more information about them and additional links (for example, to their main website). You also usually see links to check for upcoming scheduled livestreams and/or archived recordings with that partner.
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| While many partners exist in the United States, quite a few are in other countries! |
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| Example of information on a partner. |
By clicking on "Recordings," you can access an archive of past sessions. First, you will see a way to categorically filter for recordings via several checkbox choices, such as grade level and content area; it is also possible to type search terms in the search bar. One of the strengths of Streamable Learning is that is has surprisingly varied content. While Science and STEM are clearly popular, there are also Social Studies, Math, ELA, the arts, and even College and Career topics.
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| Note the numbers in parentheses. This indicates the number of recordings available for that particular filtered characteristic/category. |
Once you find and choose a recording, they are playable on site; there is no need for Zoom for the end user.
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| An archive recording from an American Civil War Museum webinar. |
Many of these recordings also have a standards-aligned document to go with them based on a state of your choice. However, once opened, some of these alignment documents say "Coming Soon" or there is no link at all because no standards doc has yet been made available.
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| The standard alignment document for the above recording. |
A final feature worth noting is that a URL to a recording can be shared with a student directly. In order to do so, the student will need your district's "code." (A teacher can look up the code for their district.) Once a student clicks on the link, they will need to type in the district code or they can't watch the recording. Again, Zoom is only necessary to participate in a livestream; no Zoom is required to watch a recording.
For a video overview of Streamable Learning, here's a screencast I made (11:00):