3 More Useful Features of Panopto
1) Assignment Folders
One of the cool features of Panopto that many users are not aware of is assignment folders. The idea is simple, these are special folders that you create for a course that give students the ability to create and upload their assignments in video form so that you can see, and comment on them from one location and interface, but are isolated from other students. This is super useful for a number of contexts – but one of my favorite scenarios is for reviewing drafts. Not only can you watch the submitted work, but you can comment with timestamps that take the student to the exact moment that you are referencing. You can further create your own response video and share it with the student directly. Oh, and you can create peer review as well using this same technique, with just a few minutes effort. Did I mention that you can also connect this directly to your Moodle course, so students don’t need to remember another link?
2) Discussions
Discussions are far from a novel concept in the digital world, but Panopto has included them with a couple added features. First, they are timestamped for reference, which helps students discuss the video without having to try to make reference to time stamps or scene descriptions. Second, there are moderation tools! Discussions can be established so that all comments must be approved before posting – which opens some doors to faculty seeking more granular control about what is posted, or perhaps more interestingly, when it is posted.
3) Built-in editor
Full disclosure, as someone that teaches video editing on non-linear editors on a pretty routine basis, I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with the Panopto editor. I really like it for what it is – an easy and efficient way to accomplish very specific and frequent actions like trimming the front and back of clips, or dropping out coughs and awkward pauses. While I’d love it to be more feature rich, the simplicity of a non-destructive editor like this is actually nice, and if you keep that in mind, the tool is really quite good. Simply highlight what you don’t want people to see in gray, and you’re done.
What I think is the really redeeming feature here is that Panopto has added the editing of other parts of the content into this same interface. Need to edit captions? Do that here too. Just click on captions on the left and then click the caption you want to edit. Want to add or edit chapters (table of contents)? Same deal. You can even add quizzes and attach presentation files right there as well. Brings me to a related point – you can add in media to stuff that you’ve already recorded or uploaded. Just go to the streams area and add whatever you need.
Did I miss something that you’re interested in discussing? Please let me know! I’m always happy to discuss Panopto (and other tools that we support) and to think about how we can best apply them to meet instructional goals. Always happy to just act as a sounding board for ideas as well!
