Connecting Online and In-Person Students
This “nifty thing” is brought to you by Les T. Johnson, educational developer (online pedagogies) at the Centre. Nifty things are small, but potent, easy-to-implement pedagogical tactics or interventions that elegantly, satisfyingly, or efficiently solve a teaching & learning problem, or achieves a teaching & learning goal.
What would you name this nifty thing?
Connecting online and in-person students with the “Notes” and “Discussions” features of Panopto.
What is the course, or teaching, context in which you deploy this?
These “nifty” ways of using Panopto could be used in any learning context but can be especially useful for hyflex courses, or any course in which lectures are recorded.
Why do you do this thing?
Using the notes and discussion features of Panopto can create collaborative learning relationships between students, especially for ones who might not otherwise interact in a physical space, i.e., those learning asynchronously online and those attending lectures in person.
What were the circumstances surrounding your uptake of it? What teaching & learning problem or goal did you set out to solve or achieve?
A hyflex learning environment can inadvertently create divisions between students; student engagement and felt connection to a course depends on a perception of co-presence to instructors and peers. Notes and Discussion in Panopto could break down barriers to co-presence, enriching the learning experiences for all students. These features allow students to learn from each other and create a community of learners as they engage with the course content, no matter the modality in which they are attending (in-person/online synchronous/asynchronous).
Outline how you deploy this thing, from start to finish.
One feature common in hyflex or dual delivery teaching is recording the lectures and activities for asynchronous engagement—either for students taking the class online or for further engagement and review by students who attended the live class in person. Once uploaded to Brightspace via Panopto, both sets of students have an opportunity to connect through the two built-in functions. See the videos below for a demonstration. After uploading the videos to Panopto, add the video to the relevant Content module. Include a description that guides student use of Discussion or Notes. You might consider engagement in these functions as part of a participation mark, if that is a category in your grading scheme.
Notes
Discussion
When viewing a video, students can use the Discussion tab to post comments, ask questions, start discussions, and engage with peers. Discussion posts are time-stamped to the video, allowing all students to easily navigate back to specific points in the lecture. In Panopto settings, both instructors and students can receive notifications via email when new comments are added.
In the Notes tab in Panopto, students “create a channel” (or join an existing channel) to take notes collaboratively. Just as with discussions, any notes added are synchronized to the video for easy navigation to the related sections of recording.
In the Panopto viewer area, students have an option of taking their own private notes or choosing “Join a channel…” from the drop-down to either create a new or search for an existing channel. (Note: once a student creates a channel, they must share its name to allow other group members to find notes channel through a search. For example, if a student creates a new channel and names it “friends,” they must share this name with other group members. Students will search for the channel “friends” to join that channel and take notes collaboratively.)
What should others know if they are going to try it themselves?
The Discussion and Notes features in Panopto are enabled by default, so there’s no need to do anything except to talk with students about how and when to use them. You may wish to explore optional settings for these features, such as the visibility of discussion threads (i.e., public to everyone in class, private between you and student, or hidden until approved by you). To further augment the connectivity between students in different modalities, take some time during lecture to highlight the conversations happening in Panopto, perhaps building on an idea or debate begun there.