The Panopto First-Time User Experience

Are you new to Panopto, NC State’s new video management system? If so, you’re not alone. It can be daunting to adjust to a new system, especially if you’re used to something else. 

Fortunately, Panopto’s design makes the tool simple for instructors and students to learn quickly. We caught up with Justin Post, director of online education for the Department of Statistics, and Wendy Krause, associate professor in Textile Engineering, Chemistry and Science, who both participated in DELTA’s Panopto Early Access group this past spring. Now Post and Krause are sharing their experiences using Panopto for the first-time. 

Post had never used Panopto prior to the Early Access group. With fairly extensive training in video management tools such as Mediasite, YouTube, Adobe Premiere, Loom, and a few others, he was excited to see what makes Panopto stand out. Krause had never heard of Panopto before but had experience with YouTube for video hosting and with Adobe Premiere and Wondershare Filmora for video creation.

“I started using Panopto without attending any training sessions. I just kind of dove in and went for it. I was pleasantly surprised with how intuitive it was to use!” Post says. 

He started out by creating his own recordings and editing his past Mediasite videos, which DELTA converted to Panopto. 

“The user interface is really nice, and I could immediately see some of the great features Panopto provided, such as multiple methods for creating recordings, easy video editing, and great auto-captioning,” he adds. 

Krause also found Panopto fairly easy to use and says the basic features come with an easy learning curve, but she still encountered some challenges while trying to navigate the interface. 

Thankfully, Panopto has an active online support platform with videos and articles to help users learn the system from scratch. DELTA also has frequent workshops, informative stories and Knowledge Base articles to help you traverse the transition from Mediasite or test the waters of video creation. 

“Take the trainings offered through DELTA!” Krause advises. “This will make your transition smooth and your basic video editing (nearly) frustration-free.”

So far, Post’s favorite feature is Panopto’s robust video players. He looks forward to encouraging students to use the Notes and Bookmarks functionalities to improve their learning.

“I really like how it embeds in Moodle and the ability to record multiple streams. I haven’t tried the quiz feature yet, but I look forward to that. I’m also excited to see how it works with the classroom capture,” Krause adds. 

Post’s advice for other faculty members new to Panopto? 

“Just start exploring,” he says. “There are some really great things you can do with Panopto and the learning curve isn’t that steep.”

Stay tuned for more updates via DELTA News and the LearnTech Knowledge Base, and get to know Panopto by attending one of our training opportunities. 

If you have specific questions or concerns, please contact LearnTech.