Smart Classrooms

Pennsylvania District Deploys Lecture Capture

• By Scott Aronowitz
• 03/02/10

Cornwall-Lebanon School District of Lebanon, PA has deployed Panopto's CourseCast, a capture tool designed to record live presentations, such as classroom lectures and student presentations, in a searchable digital format. Panopto makes CourseCast available to educational institutions free of charge through its Socrates Project.

One teacher noted that the software is simple enough for students to use without adult assistance or supervision, allowing teachers to let students deliver presentations on digital video, which the teachers can assess at a later time.

For students, the ability to search for and review class lectures allows them to make up missed work with more accuracy than reviewing a class using another student's notes, and all students can review facts, ideas, and in-class discussions and for clarification and reinforcement.

More than 55 classrooms throughout the district have reported using the software to record, archive, and retrieve in-class activity. The district said it expects that number to increase substantially with the introduction of the upcoming Virtual Academy program, which will use Panopto in conjunction with open-source course management system Moodle to allow students on-demand online access to classroom material.

"Panopto has been a huge success across the Cornwall-Lebanon School District," said Jason Murray, technology coordinator for the district. "We have used it to create IT how-to recordings that have reduced work orders so much that it has been like adding an employee to the IT staff. And teachers in all grade levels have found [the software] to be a great tool for recording student project presentations, increasing students' public speaking fluency, communicating with parents, and more."

Educational institutions can apply to use CourseCast free of charge through Panopto's Socrates Project. Further information is available here.