Students Creating and Submitting Digital Presentations Using Panopto

Students Creating and
Submitting Digital Presentations
Using Panopto
School of Creative and Cultural Business
Hello, I am Konstantina Martzoukou, Teaching Excellence
Fellow in the School of Creative and Cultural Business, at
the Robert Gordon University (RGU). I am interested in
innovation in recording a diverse range of learning,
teaching, assessment, orientation and support activities,
involving staff and students. As Higher Education faces new challenges with COVID-19,
there is not only increased need for flexible and online learning, but also for more
opportunities, where students can create together and learn with technology in innovative
ways.
With the current shift experienced in Higher Education towards micro-learning, flipped and
blended classrooms, class recordings may involve different types of activities in addition
to lecture capture. For example, staff may use recordings for walk-through
demonstrations, practical sessions, revision activities, and assessment overviews. In
addition, recordings may be used for non-teaching purposes, such as course orientation,
guest talks and resources designed to support students’ accessibility, widening
participation, inclusivity, belongingness and study flexibility. However, there can also be
student-led recorded presentations, which help students to develop a range of professional
skills, such as effective presentation, team-work and digital literacy skills. The recording
of student presentations may also help to simplify moderation and quality assurance
processes.
Our new RGU Teaching and Learning Framework
focuses on the integration and embedding of ‘whole
person education’ as a key educational component
via ‘technology enabled learning’, ‘collaborative
practice’, ‘authentic learning’, ‘flexibility and
inclusion’ and ‘lifelong learning’ (The RGU Teaching
and Learning Framework, p. 2-3). There is therefore
now an opportunity to embed recordings in more
diversified, versatile and creative ways via activities
which are designed to enable and further foster the
above directions.

In the School of Creative and Cultural
Business, Panopto is used with a large cohort
of students in BS1225 Marketing, a first-year
undergraduate module for BA (Hons)
students, where students record in their own
time their team presentations as part of
portfolio work and submit to an online drop
box.
This work is led by Tracy Pirie, with the support of Simon Farmer, the School’s Media and
Online Learning Developer. I hope that you will find the description and ideas presented
in this case study interesting and inspiring.
Who is involved in this work?
Hello, I’m Tracy Pirie and I am a Lecturer in Marketing in the School
of Creative and Cultural Business. I also am module co-ordinator
for our Marketing module which is a large module, typically with
student numbers in excess of 250, and is currently delivered to a
number of schools across the university.
Hello, I am Simon Farmer, a Media and Online Learning Developer
in the School of Creative and Cultural Business and I provide
support to lecturers within the school. This includes support in the
use of our VLE, CampusMoodle, the incorporation of media into
teaching and assessment and carrying out media production
training.
What is this method about and how does it work?
Tracy: Over the past 2 years, Simon and I have been working together on developing
and delivering a method, whereby student groups can make and submit a digital
presentation in an independent manner. We decided to organise this as part of the
marketing module, in the form of a portfolio assessment.

An element of this assessment requires students to form
groups and undertake a digital presentation. The students
are asked to record their presentations using Panopto and
then share their work using the relevant assessment Drop
box in Moodle. The students are given the first 2 weeks of
semester to self-select their groups that they will be
working in to undertake this assessment. In the first week
of teaching Simon attends my lectures, to provide the
students with an outline of the support documentation that he has developed for issues
such as digital presentations skills, and, using Panopto to either record, or, upload a
pre-recorded presentation, which they can then share the link from to the Moodle drop
box.
Students are provided a two-week period during which they can book out an hour-long
recording session in any Panopto enabled classroom. Simon then provides technical
support on the day of the recording to the student groups.
Simon: Yes, that’s right, we have been lucky to have access to the Moot court, which
is essentially a television studio with a courtoom setup inside. This has provided us
with a space in which students can come to record their presentations. However, I’m
now in the process of organising a room with input from DELTA which can be
permanently setup for Panopto, to allow students to book them out for recording
presentations. I could then include the room setup in the demonstration and support
materials. Ultimately, I would like to get to the point where we minimize staff input for
these sessions, creating an even more efficient process while still offering students a
more flexible solution.
What other support material are included for the students?
Simon: As far as it concerns other support to the
students, I have created a PDF tutorial which
shows students how to login and upload video files
to our Panopto site.
Since then, with the help of Casey Sim who works
at the Department for the Enhancement of
Learning, Teaching and Assessment (DELTA), I
have expanded this to include two short, social
media style videos which again give the essential
information for uploading media files to Panopto
and another with some presentation tips for
recording presentations to Panopto.
Casey has already created an extensive Panopto guide for staff
and these materials can now be found there. Along with the
resources on the student assignment folder new training
opportunities are also available. The training resources now
include face-to-face, fully online and flipped classroom style
sessions, along with user guides and case studies of good
practice to help cater to various learning styles and time
constraints. The training assists both new and advanced users
in enhancing their use of Panopto for teaching and learning.

Another way in which we offer support to students is as part of early lectures. Once
the lecturer has discussed the assessment, I will step in to perform a quick
demonstration of uploading a file to the Panopto assignment folder, signpost the
supporting material and carry out a short Q+A. This usually takes around 15-20
minutes. Each year the students cope incredibly well with the task though we continue
to refine the support options.
Could we see an example?
Tracy: We can see here on this example one of the student groups that really
embraced what we hoped to achieve from this style of assessment. They proactively
engaged with their imaginary live client to ensure that they reflected the brand, and
how their idea would benefit this organisation. Being able to develop their presentation
style in front of a camera versus a live audience allowed them to really embrace their
creativity and the roles that they assigned themselves as part of their presentation,
this might not have been the case had they delivered this in a room full of their peers,
due to inhibitions and concerns that some students may have about adopting persons
and a particular style of presentation, which I really saw evidence in the final
submissions that this style of assessment allowed them to overcome.
How did the students find the approach?
Tracy: I found that students responded well to the
method, and it allowed them to engage with
creative freedom and follow some really interesting
approaches to delivering complex information to
their audiences. Students also engaged
meaningfully with the materials being delivered in
class time, resulting in a number of creative, high
quality, and well researched pieces of work being
submitted for the final assessment.
Based on a number of discussions I have had with
students, I have found them to generally be very
welcoming of the digital presentation. For some, this will
be the first presentation they will deliver in a university
context; as such it allows them to practise and shape their
presentation skills without the added pressures of having
a live, and in some cases larger audience. Because the
students are able to record more than one attempt, as it
is a 10-12-minute presentation and they have an hour in the room, it means they can
reflect on the groups’ performance across the range of versions they record, and in
real time develop their presentation style to maximise the quality of their final version.

How does the method benefit students?
Tracy: Adopting this method allows the students to
demonstrate a range of skills and abilities that are
transferable to a marketing context. Not least is their
ability to work effectively in a teamworking scenario
to address a given brief, drawing together a range of
complex secondary marketing research from multiple
different sources, and using digital methods to convey
this information in a meaningful way for a given
audience – students are guided that they should treat
the assessment as though they are presenting their
new product idea as a recommendation to a develop a recognised brand, which they
have to research to justify both its application on the market, but also its ideal target
audience. This requires them to explore multiple aspects of a marketing plan to deliver
a range of different research techniques to support the observations and
recommendations that they are making as a team. As opposed to testing their memory
on the theory that we deliver in the lectures and tutorials, this style of assessment
requires them to apply their knowledge of these theories by demonstrating how it
relates to their chosen company in launching a new product. Therefore, they are
getting hands on experience of marketing related issues such as, conducting marketing
research, undertaking a competitor analysis, and developing their understanding of
segmentation of markets by developing customer personas, and these are only some
of the benefits that can be achieved through an approach such as this.
Simon: This approach sees the students engage
in early digital media practice, something we are
keen to develop within all areas of our student
body. From talking to the students, I also know
that, though some still find the process slightly
nerve racking, it is far less intense than
presenting directly to their peers and mentors.
It also allows them the opportunity to correct
mistakes by recording/rehearsing the
presentation several times and selecting the
strongest It also encourages exposure to our
lecture capture offering early on, to both staff and students, lectures are recorded via
Panopto on this module as well, so students get to grips with the Panopto interface
early on.
It is invaluable having a large cohort take this assessment so early on in their university
experience for a number of reasons. This assessment inducts the majority of CCB
students into the use of Panopto. By making it part of a summative assessment, it
becomes mandatory, so it has an incredibly wide reach. This exercise ticks a lot of
boxes. Finally, this form of assessment is great when used for new students because
it creates a safe learning environment whereby, they feel empowered to make, and
learn from, mistakes and review and reflect on their output by watching the video
back.
What were the perspectives of staff?
Tracy: From the perspective of the staff marking on this module, we found it to be an
efficient method as staff were able to review recordings around their other teaching
and marking commitments; and could do so on multiple occasions, providing the added
benefit for the students of receiving more detailed feedback, which is not always
possible when taking notes during a live session. Additionally, in a larger module like

this, with group numbers in excess of 50, this dispensed with the need to facilitate face
to face presentations which would be clustered in a 2-week period.
Are you planning any changes?
Tracy: We have observed that giving the students the
freedom to choose their route to recording has resulted in
some confusion with the students, and a lack of consistency
in terms of the groups presence in the video presentations,
such as not all group members being in the video. This is
something we have reflected on this year and plan to adopt
a singular approach next year where all students in the group
will be expected to be present, and deliver on some element
of the video, thus allowing them all to received summative
feedback on their presentation styles.
I would also advocate the development of a
frequently asked questions document. After the first
year of delivering the assessment in this way, we
identified that whilst digitally capable, students often
didn’t recognise the unique set of issues that could
come with developing a presentation that they would
not be delivering in a live class scenario. A good
example was where we had students come along
without their slides merged, nor had they practiced
together resulting in their first recording taking over 20 minutes (for a 10-12-minute
presentation). As as such the group had to abandon their assigned slot and reconvene
at a later date to undertake the recording. The importance of preparing and practicing
the materials as a group has been emphasises this year in our FAQ document.
Simon: Next time, I would like to ensure we give students
the opportunity to book and record in Panopto equipped
classrooms in much the same way as our lecturers. This
would require the updating the support materials to enable
this.
It is essential that there is expertise in the form of support
staff and a variety of support material, which should be front-loaded to the VLE where
possible. This allows students ample opportunity to review the material and to tailor
their approach to the assessment. It is worth noting that too much information can be
confusing, so I would try to limit the support to the essentials.
I would also encourage students to ensure they are ready to record before they meet
to do so. Sometimes, groups coming to the recording session are meeting together for
the first time. Sometimes groups have still to merge and refine contributions. Having
this occur during booked one-hour slots is not a good idea. As these are group
presentations, it is essential that there is space allocated to record them on campus –
not all students will have access to a recording space or equipment. I would encourage
adopters to ensure they have a room available for student presentation use, this could
be a normal small classroom with a laptop, webcam and microphone setup. Any
booked room slots should be placed ahead of the deadline, this allows time to rectify
any technical issues with equipment ahead of submission.

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Students Creating and Submitting Digital Presentations Using Panopto

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