My name is Kathryn Filsinger and I’m a faculty member in the Faculty of Business.
I first heard about Panopto at last year’s SHOWCASE (2019) and was intrigued because I thought it could elegantly address a couple of issues – kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.
Since I’ve started using it, I’ve found that it has even more helpful applications than I first realized. Here’s my list so far:
1. FLIPPING THE CLASSROOM:
My courses are content heavy and being able to videotape a lecture gives more flexibility to flip the classroom periodically. Students watch the video, easily uploaded and posted under that week’s content in Learning Materials, before class. Then, during class we have more time for case studies, debates, discussions and the like.
2. FLEXIBILITY FOR MISSED CLASSES:
Classes occasionally get cancelled – e.g. snow days. Having a video lecture that students can watch any time through Blackboard makes it much easier to catch up with a missed lecture. Again, it adds flexibility. Another example is that during the current COVID 19-related changes to the course schedule, I’ve been able to make those lecture capture videos available.
Related great features:
- Panopto automatically creates a Table of Contents for slides so students can easily locate specific areas they want to come back to.
- Panopto makes lectures accessible by generating captions (requires a bit of editing.)
3. VIDEO PRESENTATIONS BY STUDENT GROUPS:
Faced with a large Monday class this past Fall semester, with only 12 weeks of classes, Panopto allowed me to improvise for the group presentations. I had the student groups prepare video presentations, rather than live presentations, and upload their video on to Panopto.
Students are required to sign Consent Forms that can be easily printed off from the waivers page.
This format ended up being really engaging, enhancing students’ digital skills and giving even greater scope for their creativity. Due to positive student feedback, I’m now embedding a video portion into most group presentations.
4. FLEXIBILITY FOR PRESENTATION DUE DATES:
Related to point 3 above, using the flexibility that Panopto allows, I’ve started applying an earlier due date (e.g. Week 8) for the video presentations. This way student groups don’t leave preparation until the last few weeks of class when they are also studying for exams, finishing other major assignments, etc.
Watching these videos as a class, in the latter part of the course, is engaging and less stressful for the students as the work was done earlier in the semester.
If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to Humber’s Panopto Support team.
