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IT and Library Services

Good Practice

A few tips and tricks to make your recordings great. Simple steps such as microphone placement and repeating any questions will make for a better experience.

Panopto – impact on teaching style

The microphone available in the room may affect your freedom of movement. Some rooms may just have the built-in desk mics, which only pick up your voice if you are right in front of them.

If you like to wander around the front of the room, or if you tend to talk to the board while you write on it, a wireless tie-clip microphone will be needed. This is much more complex to set up, but talking towards the board isn't great teaching practice anyhow so it would be better to stop talking while you write, then turn to face the audience while you explain the diagram or equation.

If you make use of a board to write equations, draw diagrams etc. then you should use the SmartBoard or Sympodiums, where available, which also allow you to write directly on the screen.

If a student asks a question you should always repeat it back to them – this is standard good practice even if the lecture is not being recorded. The first reason is to make sure that everyone in the room hears the question – and so that it can be clearly heard on the recording. This repetition can also be really helpful to students who speak English as their second language. The second reason is to make sure that you have understood their question – and also gain a few seconds to think of the best way to answer it.

At a more fundamental level, if you can create a recording in which you deliver 'the content', does that mean that you can use your face-to-face time with students in a more interactive way? For example, a recording watched in advance of the lecture could cover the basics of a topic, thus freeing up time for you to answer student questions, set them problems and explore specific details.

Panopto - editing

Panopto’s edit tools utilise Non-Destructive Editing. This means that any editing you do to your video in Panopto does not destroy the original video, but instead re-encodes it so that it reflects the edits you made, and allows you to restore content at a later date. However, please be aware that the speed and performance of the editing interface can be adversely affected if you make a very large number of changes - editing within Panopto is best suited for making  a few minor changes.

If you wish to significantly edit your content, Panopto may not be the most suitable tool for the job, and you may find it easier to edit content offline in a different program, and then re-upload the finished version to Panopto for captioning.