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Understanding Student Video Behavior: Webinar Best Practices

Student video behavior reveals a clear pattern: learners navigate content strategically, searching for specific moments rather than watching linearly. A recent webinar featuring Shaun Searle from the University of Portsmouth and Ian Paice, Panopto’s Chief Customer Officer, explored how modern video platforms turn this behavior into better learning outcomes.

Understanding How Students Use Video

Analytics data tells a consistent story. Students spend time searching, skipping, and rewatching specific segments, often engaging with just 12 minutes of a 90-minute recording. They’re hunting for one explanation, one diagram, one worked example they can apply immediately.

When platforms provide the right features: searchable content, clear navigation, and detailed analytics, educators can design video that aligns with how learning naturally happens.

Portsmouth’s Approach: A Framework for Others

Shaun Searle developed an approach at Portsmouth that other institutions can adapt. The university created a framework centered on five principles: Structured, Meaningful, Active, Reflective, and Targeted.

The approach encourages asking fundamental questions: Why does this video exist? Why now? What will students do with it?

Portsmouth transitioned from fixed-room lecture capture to flexible content capture, embedding video in module design from the start. As Searle noted: “We’d rather have 10 well-designed videos than 100 hours of unstructured recordings.”

The framework recognizes that different students use video differently: catching up after missing class, revising for assessments, or working asynchronously. Searle emphasized: “When a video is well-designed, it serves all of these needs without requiring separate versions. It’s very much the application of universal design in action.”

Panopto Features for Effective Learning

Smart Chapters and Analytics

Panopto enables educators to add chapters and timestamps that function like bookmarks. Students jump directly to the moment they need. The platform’s AI-powered search surfaces relevant content from captions and transcripts instantly.

The analytics dashboard shows where students drop off, where they rewatch, and what they search for. Ian Paice explained: “What’s powerful about a platform like Panopto is it can show you where students are dropping off, where they’re rewatching, what they’re searching for. It’s giving you the map of where that learning moment is.”

This data helps faculty target their efforts, creating content that addresses actual student questions rather than assumptions about what they need.

Video Feedback and Interaction

Panopto’s screen recording features enable personalized feedback at scale. Educators walk through student work with video commentary, creating connections that text can’t match. Students hear tone and emphasis while seeing exactly where their thinking needs adjustment. Students record their own responses, while educators track completion of the lectures they assign through the analytics dashboard.

Educators curate videos into progressive sequences, creating guided pathways through material. This structure helps students move through content systematically while maintaining the flexibility to jump to specific topics when needed.

AI-Powered Video Learning with Elai

Creating structured video content efficiently requires tools that reduce production overhead. Elai, Panopto’s AI video creation studio, transforms how educators create learning content.

Instead of recording full lectures, educators convert PowerPoint presentations into narrated video segments with AI avatars that deliver content in focused, digestible chunks.

Educators create multiple short videos from a single presentation, each addressing a specific concept. Students access exactly what they need when they need it, and faculty spend less time on production tasks.

This approach reduces editing and transcribing time while maintaining consistent quality. Ian Paice noted that institutions are exploring how “AI can help with content creation, speed up editing, some of the administrative overhead tasks.”

Technology Supporting Pedagogy

The core principle of technology is to amplify great pedagogy.

Features work together: AI-powered search surfaces relevant moments, analytics reveal engagement patterns, interactive elements prompt thinking, and creation tools reduce production friction. The platform supports intentional design while maintaining flexibility.

AI development at Panopto focuses on elevating search capabilities, automated captioning, and intelligent recommendations based exclusively on verified institutional content. Students get instant answers pulled from captions and transcripts rather than unsubstantiated external sources.

Moving Forward

Video platforms have evolved from simple recording tools to comprehensive learning ecosystems. The combination of delivery features (search, analytics, interactive elements) and creation tools (AI-powered production, microlearning conversion) enables institutions to make video a strategic learning resource.

Success comes from understanding how students actually engage with content, then using platform features to design experiences that support those behaviors. When technology handles technical overhead, educators focus on pedagogical decisions that improve outcomes.

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