Originally posted by brian ham on September 22, 2019
A colleague and I are in the process of trying to start a “morning news” type show at our school for elementary students, and were thinking of having the students do it as a livestream instead of a produced video. As we investigated different livestreaming options, we came across Restream.io, which is a platform for streaming video to multiple web services simultaneously. Although we decided that this app was not really needed for our purposes, it got me thinking about mobile culture and why the app exists in the first place. The ability to stream live content from wherever you are in the world with only a mobile device is amazing, and definitely an integral part of mobile culture. The website also states in their “about” section that they handle “millions of broadcasts each year for content creators/streamers/influencers around the world.” This sentence caused me to reflect on how mobile culture has evolved over time into the position that traditional television once had in terms of broadcasting. The parallels are evident: everyday people with mobile devices can create content, stream and influence others to buy products & services in the same way the tv studios created shows, broadcast through tv networks and advertise with commercials.
Restream.io sounds like a great platform to take live content and stream it to multiple platforms all at once. The website states that you could stream to at least thirty different channels at the same time. Considering our new reality of online and at home learning, the idea of streaming your lessons through this application so students and parents can access it from the platform of their choice could be interesting. This might eliminate the issues of students not able to access your content because their mobile device will not open certain apps. This might even be a great way to access Professional Development conferences. If you want to watch a presenter on Facebook or YouTube or another platform, you would have that option. Being able to provide a choice to your viewers (parents, students, other teachers) as to how they view your content is a valuable option.