During last Friday’s workshop, “Teaching with Panopto,” participants received a hands-on introduction to the platform, practiced recording and submitting or embedding their recordings into Canvas, and brainstormed best practices for assigning and assessing multimodal projects made with Panopto. Presenters and participants also used Panopto to capture selected instructions and discussions. Read on for workshop highlights; you’ll find video links within the text. Note that you must be part of the CIC instructor group and log onto Panopto with your UW Net ID to view the videos. If you’re not a CIC instructor, but would like to view the videos and the workshop materials, email Kimberlee (kgb [at] uw [dot] edu) to be added to the CIC group.
Workshop Overview
Kimberlee provided an overview of the workshop agenda. One of our overall objectives was hacking Panopto, or using the platform for multimodal class activities rather lecture capture.

Screenshot of completed Panopto recording in Panopto viewer. Kimberlee added the video description visible in the Contents tab. Viewers can take Notes and create Bookmarks while watching the video.
Creating a Dropbox for Student Panopto Submissions
In order for students to make their own Panopto recordings, instructors must create a dropbox within their class Panopto Recordings folder. To do so, go to your Panopto folder settings and choose Create dropbox. As you can see from the video, attempting to alter Panopto Recordings folder settings within Canvas may not work. Instead, you may have to go to UW Panopto instead, as Kimberlee did.
Technical Considerations for New Panopto Users
Ashley LeBlanc filled in the technical instruction gaps in Kimberlee’s presentation.

Ashley provides essential instructions. The “Panopto: Mac vs. Windows” file she shared is included in the Panopto video. Just click the file icon to display it.
In order for students to see the Panopto Recordings option in Canvas, you must add it to your course navigation by going to the Navigation tab in your Canvas course Settings, dragging Panopto Recordings into your visible navigation links, and clicking Save, as pictured below.
Ashley also reminded us that the Windows and Mac versions of Panopto have fundamentally different interfaces. She provided a PowerPoint file that walks instructors through the process of working with Panopto via Windows and Mac interfaces. The file is accessible via the workshop agenda page and the recording itself.
Discussion: Pedagogical Possibilities and Best Practices for Assignment and Assessment
Workshop participants brainstormed ideas for designing multimodal assignments students can complete with Panopto. They also discussed best practices for scaffolding and assessing such assignments. The group used the installed microphone on one computer to create a Panopto audio/screen recording of the conversation and notes, thus modelling an activity students could do in the CIC classroom. The notes taken during the session are available via the workshop agenda page.
Submitting and Sharing Panopto Recordings
Workshop participants not only created Panopto recordings as students, but they submitted them via two methods: copying/pasting a link into a Canvas assignment and embedding video into a Canvas discussion posting. The notes taken during our discussion are available via the workshop agenda page.
The Instructor View: Panopto in SpeedGrader
Before participants discussed final questions, Kimberlee showed what student Panopto recordings submitted as assignments look like in an instructor’s SpeedGrader. We found that the recordings didn’t appear within the SpeedGrader window, and we thus opened the recording in a new tab instead. Ashley will discuss the glitch with UW-IT’s Learning Technologies team.
Additional Resources
- Learning Technologies offers workshops and one-on-one consultations with instructors who would like to integrate Panopto into their courses.
- Panopto Help Site