MEDIAL | How to Build a Budget-Friendly Lecture Capture System with Microsoft Teams and your LMS
- MEDIAL
- Sep 26
- 7 min read
In this walkthrough I show how you can build a budget-friendly lecture capture system by combining Microsoft Teams with MEDIAL and your existing Learning Management System. The result is a low friction, high impact workflow that requires almost no change from teachers but dramatically improves content discoverability, distribution, accessibility, and assessment. If you want an affordable way to capture lessons, deliver them inside your LMS, and add AI-powered features like automatic quizzes and in-video search, this is a practical path you can implement right now.
Table of Contents
Why use Microsoft Teams plus MEDIAL for lecture capture
There are three simple facts that make this approach attractive for most institutions.
- Cost effective
- Many organizations already have Microsoft 365 licenses. Teams is already part of your ecosystem so you avoid buying expensive dedicated lecture capture hardware or separate capture platforms.
- Familiar workflow
- Teachers record in Teams the same way they always have. That means zero learning curve for staff and minimal change management.
- Seamless LMS integration
- MEDIAL sits between Teams and your LMS and turns Teams recordings into managed, searchable, and embeddable learning media ready for Moodle, Canvas, Blackboard, Brightspace and others.
As I say in the session, “do nothing different from what they normally do with Teams, but end up with something that is massively different.” That really sums up the appeal. Small upfront setup on the MEDIAL side delivers a massive shift in how recordings are published and repurposed inside your courses.
High level architecture and workflow
The workflow is straightforward and intentionally teacher-friendly. Here are the building blocks and the standard flow we use:
Teacher schedules or starts a meeting in Microsoft Teams and records as usual.
Teams saves the recording to OneDrive/SharePoint and generates a transcript.
MEDIAL ingests the recording automatically from Teams based on simple rules you configure.
Once ingested MEDIAL organizes the media in its CMS and exposes it inside your LMS via a MEDIAL plugin or activity.
Teachers can edit, split, caption, create AI-quizzes, and publish the content right inside the LMS.
That entire flow can be automated so the teacher only needs to add a specific keyword to the Teams meeting title or use an automatic ingest setting. For many customers we set a simple rule: any Teams recording with a chosen keyword in the title will be imported into MEDIAL. That single step is the only change teachers need to make to their familiar Teams workflow.
Example rule
In practice we set a keyword like MEDIAL or the name of the LMS. Teachers add that keyword to the meeting title, record as normal, and MEDIAL picks up the file automatically. For organisations that prefer no keyword, MEDIAL can ingest all recordings or filter by user, channel, or other criteria.
Adding Teams recordings to the LMS in minutes
Once MEDIAL has ingested a recording it becomes a first class media object in the CMS. From there the LMS integration makes it trivial to add a recording to a course page. With the MEDIAL activity/plugin inside Moodle, Canvas, Blackboard or Brightspace you simply:
Add a MEDIAL activity to the course
Choose existing media
Select the Teams recording that MEDIAL ingested
That is it. No manual sharing links, no embedding external players outside of the LMS, and no confusing file permissions. The media appears directly inside the course so students get a clean, consistent learning experience.
Editing and repurposing recordings
Teams provides only basic trimming after a meeting ends. MEDIAL adds a richer set of tools so teachers can prepare recordings for students without leaving the LMS. Typical post-processing includes:
Trim start and end to remove preamble and post chatter
Remove or redact portions of the recording inside the timeline
Split long lectures into shorter, topic-based segments
Add captions, metadata, and searchable transcripts
Breaking long sessions into shorter chunks increases engagement and makes it easier for students to review specific points. All editing happens in the browser inside the MEDIAL interface that is embedded in your LMS, so teachers stay in the same context where they manage their course.
AI features that save time and boost engagement
Two of the most compelling MEDIAL features for teaching teams are automatic AI quiz generation and in-video search.
AI-generated quizzes from recorded lectures
With a few clicks teachers can ask MEDIAL to generate quiz questions from the transcript of a Teams recording. You can set the number and type of questions and the difficulty level. MEDIAL uses AI to extract key points and write multiple choice, true false, and short answer questions automatically.
From there teachers can review, replace, or edit questions, add annotations or links, and push the quiz into the LMS gradebook. That makes it easy to turn one recording into a graded learning activity without extra workload.
In-video search and captions
Transcripts created by Teams are imported and made searchable inside MEDIAL. Students can jump to the exact moment a topic is discussed. Closed captions and the transcript also help with accessibility and support students who need to follow text and audio at the same time.
Searchable media plus segmented clips makes revision faster and helps instructors spot which parts of the lecture students found most challenging.
Analytics and engagement tracking
MEDIAL provides deeper analytics than you get by storing raw Teams recordings in OneDrive. Teachers and administrators can see who watched each clip, how long they watched, which device they used, and engagement over time. Useful scenarios include:
Identifying students who watched at the last minute
Finding parts of a lecture where viewers often drop off
Correlating quiz results with viewing patterns
These analytics help teachers adapt content and target interventions for students who are struggling.
Administration and deployment
Administrators configure MEDIAL to connect to Microsoft Teams by copying a small set of configuration values from the Microsoft tenant into the MEDIAL admin console. This initial setup is straightforward, and MEDIAL supports flexible ingest rules including:
Ingest all recordings
Ingest recordings only from specific users
Ingest recordings only from specific channels
Ingest based on keywords in the meeting title
Once configured, MEDIAL runs in the background and reduces manual overhead. MEDIAL is also a full featured CMS so administrators can manage content, permissions, storage quotas and integrations from a central console.
Other capture options MEDIAL supports
MEDIAL is not limited to Teams recordings. If you want to record webcam, screen capture, or upload pre-recorded lectures, MEDIAL offers built-in screen recorder tools such as Media Lecture. All of these capture methods feed into the same CMS and LMS distribution channel so your content is centralized and consistent.
Implementation checklist
Here is a compact checklist to run a pilot and then scale:
Decide on ingest rule: keyword, user list, channel, or all recordings
Configure MEDIAL to connect to your Microsoft tenant
Install the MEDIAL plugin in your LMS and configure it for your courses
Run a small pilot with a few teachers to validate workflow and permissions
Train teachers on the single change they need to make if using keywords
Collect feedback and adjust settings such as auto captions, analytics retention, and ingest filters
Practical tips for teachers
Add the agreed keyword to the meeting title right at the start so MEDIAL ingests the recording automatically
Keep recordings focused and use the split feature to create shorter learning segments
Generate an AI quiz and tie it to the gradebook to increase accountability
Review analytics to see who may need additional support
FAQ
Q: Do teachers need new training to use this workflow?
A: Minimal training is required. Teachers keep their existing Teams workflow. The only small change might be remembering to add a keyword to the meeting title if your MEDIAL ingest rule requires it. Otherwise everything else happens behind the scenes.
Q: Can MEDIAL ingest every Teams recording automatically?
A: Yes. MEDIAL supports multiple ingest modes. You can ingest all recordings, recordings from specific users, channels, or recordings that include a keyword in the meeting title. Choose the mode that matches your privacy and administrative policies.
Q: Will captions and transcripts be available?
A: Yes. Teams generates live transcripts which MEDIAL ingests. MEDIAL also supports closed captions and searchable transcripts so students can jump to exact moments in a lecture.
Q: Can I edit recordings after they are ingested?
A: Absolutely. MEDIAL provides editing tools to trim, redact, split, and annotate clips. These edits can be done in the browser inside the LMS so teachers do not leave their course environment.
Q: Can MEDIAL create quizzes automatically?
A: Yes. MEDIAL uses AI to create quiz questions from the transcript of a lecture. Teachers can review, edit, and publish the quiz into the LMS gradebook in minutes.
Q: How do I share a recording with external users who do not have LMS access?
A: MEDIAL supports public access links. You can enable public access for a clip and copy a clean player URL to share externally. This is useful for guest speakers, partner institutions, or parents.
Conclusion and next steps
Combining Microsoft Teams with MEDIAL and your LMS delivers a powerful, budget-friendly lecture capture solution that scales. The key benefits are low teacher friction, rich media management, improved accessibility, AI-driven learning activities, and meaningful analytics. You do not need expensive hardware and you leverage your existing Microsoft investment while centralizing media inside the LMS.
If you want to trial this setup, contact MEDIAL to request a demo or pilot. A short pilot with a handful of courses will demonstrate how little teacher effort generates big returns for students and administrators. Start simple, iterate on ingest rules, and use MEDIAL analytics to measure impact and refine your approach. The combination of Teams plus MEDIAL turns everyday recordings into a rich, assessable, and searchable learning resource.
Comments