Alian Buss, University of Wyoming professor for elementary mathematics and science, together with Dr. Leslie Rush, director of the school of teachers’ education, are introducing a new teaching technology named Panopto. The software provides an e-learning environment where a user can get an access to lecture recording, screen casting, video streaming and video content management.
“It is more like a YouTube for education,” said Buss.
Several educational institutes such as, but not limited to, University of California Berkeley, University of Oxford and Yale University are using this software to provide a great e-learning platform for students. It records a single classroom from multiple directions and synchronizes it in one screen giving students an option to view the lecture from their own preferred perspective whether they want to watch the professor, screen or both at the same time.
Panopto doesn’t require a fancy camera, one can easily record a class lecture from their devices and upload it.
“The long-term project is to create a library,” said Buss.
Buss was researching for such software for the past 10 months and finally found it. The Grant Haywood Foundation funded access to this software and the College of Education received it at the end of August. Buss tested the software and fixed any bugs over the past few days. He wants to make it accessible through Wyocourses and canvas.
“I think it would be very beneficial, especially if a student has to miss a lot of class. It will be easier with that kind of technology,” Kassi Kister, a physiology student at UW, said.
To use Panopto one must be a member of the organization as the videos won’t be accessible to the public. Buss is looking forward to using the software to help students who are majoring in education to visit more classrooms since it is hard to get students to a variety of UW’s schools because of the distance and time.
“Being an education major, this technology is really useful for students like us who wants to experience various perspective of teaching,” Cole Simpson, UW freshman, said.
Some of the Education Annex building classrooms are equipped with all the equipment to record the teaching. Some cameras are mounted up high in the classroom, which bend, tilt and zoom. Devices like Swivl, which works as a base for an iPad/iPhone to track the location of the person who is connected with its microphone.
