Case Study: Using Panopto for Live and Recorded Lectures and Q&A sessions

Abstract

Panopto is a lecture recording platform which can be used to pre-record lectures or to host live lectures after which the recording will be made available. Panopto includes a number of features that enable students to interact with content and the lecturer as they might in a live, face-to-face lecture environment.  Some of these features are an enhancement on what might be possible within a traditional lecture environment.  Shane has used Panopto in a number of ways for both live online delivery but also recording of lectures, but highlights some of these particular features:

• In Panopto viewer, lecturers can time-stamp/bookmark sections of the lecture to help break it up into shorter clips that are more digestible. These bookmarks can be used to quickly navigate to the relevant slide/audio-visual recording.
• In Panopto viewer, students can also use Notes to annotate sections of the lecture in a similar manner, but these Notes are only available to the individual student. Students can use these Notes to indicate a point of particular interest/relevance and/or to identify a point for which they need further clarification.  These Notes are time-stamped according to the exact point in the lecture (commentary and slide position) so that students can easily refer back, if needed.
• For lectures delivered live through Panopto, students can raise questions/comments through the Discussion feature.  These questions will be available for the lecturer and other students to see, and so it may be desirable to concurrently avail of platforms that facilitate anonymous questions such as Padlet or Vevox.

Encouraging student engagement

Another way in which Shane has used Panopto is for pre-recording lectures.  Students will have continued access to this recording, that they can watch and re-watch as needed.  Using the Notes feature, as described, they can highlight parts of interest or that require further clarification.  A number of days post-release of the recording, Shane runs Q&A sessions where he will respond to student queries prompted by the recording.  Students can post questions publicly (via Panopto) or anonymously (via other freeware such as Padlet. Vevox would work well, too).  Allowing questions to be posted anonymously is seen to make students feel more comfortable with asking questions that they might not otherwise be happy to do in a large classroom environment. These questions can be answered using Panopto in the context of the lecture recording (audio-visual, slides, Notes, and other bookmarks) making it easier for students to synthesise information compared to when questions are answered across multiple channels (e.g., one-to-one, via email, during office hours, Canvas Discussion threads, or Canvas inbox messages).

Shane sees particular benefits for student engagement in providing Panopto recordings that include both video and audio of the lecturer alongside the slides.  Whilst it is important for content to be well prepared in advance, as would be the case for a live face-to-face lecture, there is no need for recorded lectures to be over-rehearsed or too scripted.  In an online learning environment, it is important that the personality of the lecturer comes across to students; overly scripted or rehearsed lectures may diminish engagement of the student with the lecturer. Delivering a continuous video with the facility for time-stamping may be a useful way of ensuring the lecturer can let their personality shine through, while providing both staff (using bookmarks) and students (using Notes) with the option to break a lecture up into sub-topics.