Interactivity know-how

Below is a closer look at how two universities, Butler University in Indiana and the University of Florida, are enhancing learning videos for their online courses.

Butler University: Adding quizzes to video

Technology used: Panopto video platform for recording lectures

Interactive boosts: Voiceover can be added to PowerPoint slides. When the instructor finds a place in the presentation to add a quiz, the video gets edited and a multiple-choice, true/false or multiple-answers type of question can be inserted.

Then the instructor decides whether to let students see the correct answers instantly or to make them wait until class time for the reveal. The platform records the answers students give on the quizzes so that they can be added to their grades.


Link to main story: Creating an interactive video for distance learning courses


University of Florida: Using the Lightboard with video

Technology used: Lightboard studio on campus for recording; Mediasite by Sonic Foundry captures the Lightboard, professor, notes and a live screencast, as well as uploads videos to the online course

Interactive boosts: In the studio, developed using an open source platform (provided by a Northwestern University professor who created the technology), the instructor stands behind a glass surface and writes on the Lightboard with a neon marker during the lecture.

The instructor’s writing is flipped, either by using a mirror that faces that camera, or by switching it electronically using software, so that it doesn’t appear reversed to the students.

The recording can also show the instructor standing inside a PowerPoint presentation, by mixing the output from the camera and the output from a computer.


Sherrie Negrea, a writer based in Ithaca, New York, is a frequent contributor to UB.

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