ReadSpeaker & TextAid: Making Learning More Accessible
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Education is about creating pathways to success for all students, and accessibility tools play a key role in making that possible. By offering inclusive learning support, we reduce barriers, embrace diverse learning styles, and promote a greater sense of belonging. As part of this commitment, we’re highlighting two valuable tools: ReadSpeaker and TextAid.
ReadSpeaker is a text-to-speech tool that allows students to listen to course content, including documents, pages, and quizzes – directly within Brightspace. It’s especially helpful for students with visual impairments, learning differences like dyslexia, or those who prefer auditory learning.
For expanded support beyond Brightspace, TextAid—a companion tool from ReadSpeaker—provides additional features such as writing assistance, translation, and annotation. Its browser extension also enables students to listen to web pages and personal documents, making it a flexible and valuable tool for both academic and everyday learning.
How to Access ReadSpeaker
ReadSpeaker in Brightspace – ReadSpeaker’s “Listen” button and options show up automatically throughout your Brightspace course pages or uploaded text documents.
TextAid Application – For more advanced learning support, students can use TextAid, a companion tool from ReadSpeaker. It extends accessibility support beyond Brightspace to personal study materials and even websites. TextAid requires a personal license. Contact the Office of Disability, Access, and Inclusion (DAI) for a license.
What ReadSpeaker Does for Instructors
Supports inclusive teaching & UDL
Helps meet accessibility compliance
No setup required — built into Brightspace
Automatically works on most course content
Reduces the need to create separate audio files
Encourages self-paced, flexible learning
Promotes student independence and engagement
Enhances comprehension and accessibility in courses
What ReadSpeaker Does for Students
Listen to course content in Brightspace
Customize voice, speed, and text display
Read and listen at the same time
Use masking and highlighting to stay focused
Great for diverse learning needs (dyslexia, ADHD, ESL)
By integrating tools like ReadSpeaker and TextAid into our learning environment, we take meaningful steps toward making education more accessible, flexible, and supportive for all students. Whether you’re an instructor looking to enhance inclusivity in your course or a student exploring new ways to engage with content, these tools are here to help you succeed. If you have questions or need help getting started, don’t hesitate to reach out to the IT Teaching and Learning Services— we’re here to support you every step of the way.
New for 2025, the Course Merchant storefront provides a professional and user-friendly experience for the Brightspace Engage platform. Available to all URI departments and colleges, the combination of Course Merchant and Engage will allow students to easily search for available classes and submit payment. At the same time, these students’ Engage accounts will be created automatically, and they will be enrolled directly in their course, reducing administrative burdens on URI staff.
Engage is specifically designed for professional development, training, and non-credit bearing classes offered to the general public. To learn more, and discover what Engage can offer you, please reach out to the the IT Teaching and Learning Services team for a consult.
Important Changes Coming for Summer 2025 Courses
As part of ongoing efforts to improve teaching tools and course integration, two key Brightspace updates will go live on May 16, 2025. These changes enhance grading workflows and ensure continued access to third-party tools.
New Quiz Evaluation Experience
On May 16, Brightspace will introduce an updated interface for grading quizzes. This change aligns the evaluation experience with what’s already used for Assignments and Discussions, streamlining grading and making the interface more consistent across tools. No information is being added or removed, and student views will not be impacted.
Also on May 16, the Top Hat and McGraw Hill integrations in Brightspace will be upgraded to newer, more secure versions. Faculty using these tools must update their course links to maintain access.
📅 Deadline: May 16, 2025
What’s Changing?
🔹 Top Hat 1.1 → Upgrading to Top Hat 1.3
More secure and improved integration
Faculty must update links in Brightspace
🔹 McGraw Hill Connect → Upgrading to MHC LTIA
Enhanced features and security updates
Faculty must transition to the new tool in their courses
What Faculty Need to Do
To ensure a smooth transition, faculty should: ✅ Remove old integration links from their Brightspace courses ✅ Remove related gradebook items (if applicable) ✅ Add the new integration tool to their Brightspace course ✅ Follow setup guides to configure their courses properly
Come with me on a journey exploring AI in teaching learning @ URI. It began as the URI Academic Summit welcomed faculty back to campus in January to discuss AI @ URI 2.0. Opening the event, a URI panel of staff, administration and faculty discussed where URI has come since the last Academic Summit in 2024 on AI and the future based on recommendations from the AI task force report. It is important to clarify that AI includes machine learning, neural networks, and robotics (around for decades), most of the topics for today’s summit address the narrower field of AI: generative AI which became rapidly widespread through open source products (such as ChatGPT).
Innovative AI Integration in Teaching and Learning Breakout Session
This session explored the innovative ways faculty are incorporating AI into their classrooms. We heard from URI faculty, who are listed below, who have used AI for activities such as group work, individual projects, and programming assignments. Discussion included understanding the impact of AI on student learning and engagement and best practices for motivating students to use these tools effectively.
AI in Business Assignment for Game Creation
Christy Ashley, Marketing/Business Christy Ashley discussed how students in her business courses made choices about AI tools for game creation. A guest speaker from Hasbro shared insights into how games are developed, and then she showed an example of the differences in game development using AI. Students often approached AI by simplistically replicating her work, not developing their own game creation.
Additionally, there were realtime considerations that impacted the use of the AI such as loading issues. Ashley highlighted the value of experimenting with new approaches in the classroom, experiencing mistakes, and thoughtfully reflecting on how to improve them for future use.
AI in Classroom Discussions and Assignments
Steven Atlas, Marketing/Business Steven Atlas explored AI’s integration into classroom discussions, embedding learning about AI through discussion forums. He expressed the importance of determining clear parameters for the students. He also introduced optional AI supplements to assignments, allowing students to experiment with AI-generated content and refine their understanding.
For final projects, Steven encouraged students to use AI to develop research questions and benchmark AI behavior against human decision-making. This approach, particularly in marketing research, allowed students to explore how AI processes information differently from humans.
AI in Biology Education
Nic Fisk, Cell & Molecular Biology Computational biologist and education researcher Nic Fisk emphasized designing assignments suiting the desired learning outcome, which may include how AI is used in research. They contrasted Google and ChatGPT in long-term retention, generalizability, and transfer of skills developed using these tools. They also noted that students’ frustration when they encounter AI-generated errors provides opportunities for learning. For example, prompting a generative AI and identifying missing nuances or important details can help students focus on the interesting elements of their writing or research.
AI’s Analytical Power in Research: Will and Christy
Will and Christy Will and Christy discussed examining AI’s capabilities in deep analytics, contrasting human limitations with AI’s ability to process vast amounts of data. They highlighted how AI can significantly enhance research methodologies, but also raised concerns about over-reliance on AI-generated insights.
AI in Philosophy and Writing
Will Krieger Will Krieger explored AI’s role in philosophical writing, emphasizing structured approaches to AI-assisted writing. Writing has always been the way we thought we need to assess philosophy. He has been exploring the outcomes of assignments and courses to consider integrating AI into the process. He implemented a three-submission assignment:
1 – A written detailed prompt asking for a detailed outline specifying sources, material, and objectives. 2 – Use AI to generate a structured essay based on the outline. 3 – Refine the AI-generated material into a final human-authored submission.
This three-submission assignment increases the instructor workload for assessing. Will found that this method worked well for half of the students, reinforcing the idea that specificity in AI prompting leads to better outputs.
AI’s Analytical Power in Research: Will and Christy
Vanessa Harwood Vanessa Harwood, from the Communication Disorders field, discussed AI’s impact on speech-language pathology as it relates to the arduous chore of phonetic transcription. She noted that while AI can transcribe adult speech accurately, it often struggles with pediatric speech, and more so speech sound disorders.
However, AI tools can significantly reduce documentation time by encoding phonetic transcriptions that are arduous. She advocated for a three-step AI-assisted process that improves efficiency without sacrificing accuracy, where there is a cross check of AI output, ultimately reducing the time spent on transcribing and increasing the time spent with patients.
Session Wrap Up: AI as a Tool for Thoughtful Integration
The panel concluded with a call for thoughtful AI integration in education. Faculty recognized AI’s ability to create efficiencies, but have also emphasized that it should not replace critical thinking. By understanding AI’s strengths and limitations, faculty can design courses that leverage AI’s benefits while maintaining academic rigor.
Keynote: Courage, AI Systems, and Troubles We Cannot Avoid
Dr. Vance Ricks
Dr. Ricks delved into AI ethics, discussing values in AI design, issue-spotting, and professional responsibilities. He introduced concepts of moral and techno-moral courage, drawing on Shannon Valor’s philosophy of ethical AI use. Key themes included:
The importance of intelligent hope and intelligent fear in AI adoption.
Recognizing AI as a socio-technological system embedded in broader social contexts.
Ethical considerations surrounding AI-driven decisions, especially in teaching and evaluation.
Broader Implications for Teaching Practices
Faculty acknowledged that both students and professors could misuse AI, raising concerns about academic integrity. The conversation emphasized:
The historical parallels between AI and past technological fears in advancements like Y2K, calculators, and Wikipedia.
The need for well-structured assignments that encourage critical engagement with AI.
Institutional approaches to shaping AI adoption in education, balancing efficiency with depth of learning.
Ultimately, AI’s role in education will continue to evolve, and educators should remain adaptive, ensuring that AI serves as an enhancer to rather than a replacement for meaningful learning.
– Dr. Amanda Jensen
On the third floor of the Memorial Union, a formerly quiet office has become a bustling hub of activity. Thanks to the collaboration of departments across the University, and an enthusiastic and dedicated group of students, Room 317 is now home to the Rhody eLab.
The space features 5 high performance gaming gaming stations, a growing catalog of games to play, and is URI’s first dedicated esports space. It it open to all students following the completion of a Code of Conduct, and more information can be found at our website: https://web.uri.edu/rhody-esports/elab/.
Peter Phipps is a part-time faculty member in the Journalism department with 45 years of experience as a reporter, columnist, and senior editor for Providence Journal, Akron Beacon Journal, and Cleveland Press. He has taught Journalism for about 20 years at Emerson and URI.
Introduction
Peter Phipps brings decades of journalism experience to URI’s classrooms, where he teaches a variety of courses including Media Law, History of Journalism, Introduction to Mass Communications, News Writing and Reporting, and Journalism and Criticism. When faced with the challenge of engaging 245 students—140 of them freshmen—in his Introduction to Mass Communications course, Peter recognized that traditional teaching methods wouldn’t suffice. He sought out digital tools that could help him manage such a large class while maintaining student engagement and facilitating meaningful group work.
Throughout his teaching experience, Peter has come to understand a fundamental truth: no matter what tool or professor is involved, student engagement ultimately depends on students’ willingness to participate. This realization led him to develop a multi-faceted approach using three key digital tools: Mentimeter for real-time engagement, Brightspace for course management, and Google Docs for collaborative work.
Mentimeter it’s free for students with lots of polling options, word cloud, multiple-choice questions, etc.
Peter Phipps
Is Mentimeter free?
Yes! Free users can create unlimited presentations with any question type and host up to 50 participants per month. To exceed 50 participants, an account upgrade is required.
Teaching Tool Usage
Before implementing digital tools, Peter had reached out to TLS on several occasions for tools and resources that he could use. He had found their consultation to be helpful in pursuit of which tools URI has as well as support/training for the various functionalities of these tools. This guidance helped him in developing strategies for managing his large class size.
Within the course, Peter structured his 75-minute classes into three carefully planned segments: 35 minutes of lecture, 25 minutes of polling activities and discussion, and 15 minutes for quizzes. To facilitate this structure, he implemented Mentimeter as his primary engagement tool, using it independently of slideshow presentations to conduct real-time polls and create word clouds. While the tool proved effective during periods of high attendance, its inability to track attendance became a significant limitation in a class where he knew only 10 of 245 student names.
The backbone of his course organization relied on Brightspace, where he divided his 245 students into 45 groups. This experience taught him valuable lessons about group dynamics in large classes. Initially creating groups of 5-6 students, he discovered this size was too large for effective collaboration. Through trial and error, he determined that three students per group would be ideal, though this would create the logistical challenge of managing 82 groups.
To facilitate collaborative work, Peter initially used Brightspace’s Locker feature but later transitioned to Google Docs. This platform provided students with more space and flexibility to organize their research and data. Each group designated one member as their document organizer, creating a clear structure for their collaborative work. However, the transition between platforms revealed communication challenges, as some students missed the announcement and continued using Brightspace Locker, resulting in temporary grading complications.
How do my students join a presentation using Mentimeter?
No installation is needed. Students can join by entering the code at menti.com, scanning the QR code, or using the voting link. They can vote directly from their smartphone or internet device.
Sample Word Cloud from Mentimeter
Student Experience & Feedback
The implementation of these digital tools revealed several crucial insights about managing large classes. Student participation demonstrated a clear correlation with physical presence, as attendance dropped dramatically from 240 to 80 to 11 students over time. This decline significantly impacted the effectiveness of interactive tools like Mentimeter. Despite these challenges, some groups showed remarkable engagement with the material. One group particularly stood out by pursuing an academic investigation into the relationship between screen time and eye strain, demonstrating the potential for meaningful research even in a large introductory course.
How to create your first Mentimeter Presentation?
Resources
Mentimeter – A free online polling tool used to create interactive engagement and shape teaching approaches.
Brightspace Groups – Learning management system used for grading and organizing class groups.
Google Docs – Collaborative platform used by groups to collect research data.
In today’s digital education landscape, creating engaging and interactive learning materials is no longer optional—it’s essential. Lumi Education, a platform dedicated to simplifying the creation of interactive content, is helping educators, trainers, and content creators transform their teaching approaches.
Lumi Education is one of the H5P, or HTML5 Package, editors available to create activities that allow faculty to develop a variety of interactive content for their Brightspace courses. This includes matching games, branching scenarios, and more.
Among Lumi’s many options, the Hotspot content type stands out as an innovative way to make visual content interactive and dynamic.
Here’s a closer look at Lumi Education’s Hotspot content type and how it can enhance your teaching or training materials.
Lumi Platforms
Lumi offers two main platforms for creating and managing interactive content: the Lumi Desktop application and Lumi Cloud. Both have their advantages and understanding the difference can help you choose the best option for your needs.
Lumi Desktop refers to their free downloadable app that allows users to create, edit content, and save files to their computer, while the Lumi Cloud refers to an online version of the editor that is accessed through a web browser with options of a free or paid plan.
What Is the Hotspot Content Type?
The Hotspot content type allows you to take any image and make it an interactive learning experience just by adding clickable spots that will expand and provide more information. It’s an excellent tool for creating visually engaging content that keeps learners actively involved.
Why Use Hotspot Activities?
Enhance Visual Learning Visual aids are powerful tools in education, and the Hotspot content type makes them even more impactful. By adding interactivity, static images become rich educational experiences. Learners are encouraged to explore details, leading to deeper understanding and retention of information.
Foster Engagement In traditional learning, students often passively consume information. With hotspots, they actively participate by exploring and interacting with the content. This approach helps keep learners engaged and motivated to dive deeper into the material.
Versatile Applications Whether you’re teaching geography, anatomy, or art history, the hotspot feature can adapt to any subject. Highlight key landmarks on a map, label body parts, or analyze famous artworks—all with a single tool.
Learn About Berries – Sample Hotspot Content from H5P.com
Key Features
Customizable Hotspots: Place hotspots anywhere on your image, linking them to explanations, videos, external resources, or quiz questions.
Interactive Feedback: Build hotspots into activities that provide instant feedback. Whether it’s identifying landmarks on a map or labeling parts of a diagram, learners get real-time validation or correction.
Responsive Design: Hotspot activities are optimized for all devices, ensuring a seamless experience for learners on desktops, tablets, or smartphones.
Versatile Media Options:Incorporate text, images, videos, and links within hotspots, offering diverse ways to communicate information and appeal to different learning styles.
Creating Hotspots Activities with Lumi
Lumi makes it simple to create your own hotspot content using their free H5P Desktop Editor or the Lumi Cloud platform. Here’s a quick overview:
Choose an Image: Select a high-quality image relevant to your lesson or topic.
Add Hotspots: Use the intuitive editor to place hotspots on specific areas of the image.
Insert Content: Link each hotspot to rich media such as text explanations, videos, or quizzes.
Test and Share: Preview your activity to ensure it’s functioning as intended, then share it with learners via a web link or embed it in your LMS.
Need help exporting Lumi content as a SCORM package?
The Hotspot content type is a game-changer for educators who want to move beyond traditional teaching methods. Lumi Education makes it easy to create, customize, and share these engaging activities, helping learners stay interested and retain knowledge more effectively.
In today’s classrooms, the availability of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is impacting learning—it is a time of raising questions as AI provides a variety of options and insights. AI tools can now assist students in writing, problem-solving, and research; offering new levels of convenience and access. But, while these tools can be helpful, they also bring challenges. As educators, it’s crucial to not just introduce AI, but to cultivate an environment of critical thinking that balances both caution and curiosity, all the while empowering students to ask: What might be missing? Can I trust this output? and What does it mean to use AI responsibly?
Critical thinking has long been a cornerstone of higher education and intellectual development. In an AI-enabled world, students need to learn to go beyond using these tools; they need to understand how to generate insights through verifying information, as well as understanding the possibilities and limits of technology.
When students engage in critical thinking with AI, they’re better prepared to:
Think creatively and independently: Critical thinking encourages students to consider multiple perspectives and solutions, rather than simply relying on AI-generated answers. This independence nurtures innovation and personal insight.
Distinguish fact from fabrication: While AI can generate vast amounts of text, not everything it produces is accurate. Encouraging students to fact-check and cross-reference helps cultivate a healthy skepticism.
Challenge assumptions: AI often reflects only its training data. By guiding students to analyze the sources (including question potential biases) and recognize how assumptions shape information, it can help foster critical thinking.
Key areas to explore in AI’s limitations include:
Accuracy and Misinformation: AI produces results based on patterns in data rather than true understanding. Students may mistake plausible-sounding, yet incorrect information, for fact, undermining their knowledge and learning integrity.
Data-Driven Biases: AI systems inherit biases from the data used to train them, potentially perpetuating skewed perspectives. Encouraging students to question these biases nurtures an awareness of how assumptions shape content, fostering a more discerning, balanced view of information.
Risks to Independent Thought: Over-relying on AI can hinder a student’s own critical thinking skills. While AI might offer shortcuts, true learning often comes from grappling with complexity, not from accepting easy answers.
Ultimately, while AI may seem to provide quick solutions, it cannot replace critical thinking. Many AI-generated responses appear confident and well-formatted, however although outputs may: miss nuance, need detailed fact checking, or reflect underlying biases from source materials. Approaching AI materials with critical thinking can help students in recognizing these pitfalls and develop habits of inquiry that can prevent them from adopting AI’s suggestions without expert review.
As an institution of higher education, we have the ability to foster a mindset of inquiry. Consider the following strategies to help students and ourselves engage thoughtfully and critically with AI:
Encourage Source Verification: Just as we ask students to cite sources in their own work, we can guide them to question AI sources and verify AI-generated content. This practice reinforces the importance of credible information and builds a habit of checking facts.
Examine AI’s Limitations Together: Bring AI-generated outputs into class discussions; exploring where they succeed and where they fall short. This exercise helps students recognize that AI’s “knowledge” is limited, often lacking the context, depth, and human judgment necessary for complex analysis.
Practice “Spot the Error” Activities: Regularly review AI outputs in class to identify inaccuracies, ethical concerns, or biases. This approach not only develops a critical eye, but reinforces the idea that AI should be questioned and evaluated, and not just passively accepted.
Engage in Ethical Dialogues: The ethics of AI use extend beyond academic integrity, it also includes privacy issues and potential societal impacts. Encouraging students to reflect on these implications fosters a responsible mindset, helping them consider the broader impact of their technology use.
While AI tools can provide new educational possibilities, there’s value in asking when to use AI. Asking the question of whether AI truly serves the learning objectives of the course and assignment. Some lessons may be better learned by working through challenges without automated assistance, promoting creativity, resilience, and deep, independent analysis. However, by selectively incorporating AI, educators can help students appreciate it as a tool that, while powerful, doesn’t replace the need for human insight and critical judgment.
Encouraging thoughtful reflection with a little skeptism toward AI helps students maintain their intellectual independence. Rather than seeing AI as a replacement for their own reasoning, they’ll learn to use it as a complement to their critical thinking. This balanced approach supports a learning environment where technology is seen as a helpful aid but not an unquestionable authority.
In an AI-enhanced world, it’s more important than ever to cultivate critical thinking and intellectual independence in students. Through a balanced approach—one that blends curiosity with caution —we can empower students to use AI responsibly and thoughtfully. Let’s encourage our students to ask questions, challenge outputs, and think critically so that, no matter where technology advances, they are equipped with critical thinking, curiosity, and insight.
As educators, understanding how students engage with course materials is key to creating meaningful learning experiences. Learning analytics provides instructors a powerful toolset to collect and analyze data on student engagement, providing actionable insights that can help tailor teaching strategies and improve student outcomes. In Brightspace, various built-in tools allow instructors to track student progress, identify engagement trends, and assess the effectiveness of course materials.
What is Learning Analytics?
According to the Society for Learning Analytics Research (SoLAR), learning analytics is “the measurement, collection, analysis, and reporting of data about learners and their contexts, for purposes of understanding and optimizing learning and the environments in which it occurs.” Learning analytics involves the collection and analysis of data about learners and their educational experiences. It focuses on using this data to understand and optimize both the learning outcomes and the environment in which learning takes place.
Learning Analytics Tools in Brightspace
Brightspace provides a variety of analytics tools that give instructors a comprehensive view of student engagement. These tools help faculty understand how students interact with assignments, discussions, quizzes, and more.
Click on the screenshots for sample data
Class Progress: This tool provides a customizable dashboard that allows you to monitor both class-wide and individual student progress across a variety of metrics, such as assignments, discussions, quizzes, and content access. You can select up to four metrics from a list of seven, including assignment performance, content completion, discussion participation, and quiz performance. This feature gives you a high-level view of student activity and enables you to intervene when needed.
Content Reports: Content reports provide insights into how students interact with course materials. You can view data on how many students have accessed specific content items, how often they visit them, and how much time they spend viewing them. This helps you determine which materials are most engaging and which may need adjustment.
Quiz Statistics: Brightspace’s quiz statistics give a detailed breakdown of quiz performance, allowing you to see class averages, standard deviations, and individual student results. You can also dive deeper into individual quiz questions to understand how students are performing on specific topics.
Discussion Statistics: Track student activity in discussion forums with Brightspace’s discussion statistics. This tool provides data on overall discussion participation, individual student contributions, and activity within specific forums or topics, helping you gauge how students engage with each other and the course material.
Gradebook Statistics: Gradebook statistics offer a detailed view of student performance in different grade items or categories. You can filter the data by sections or individual users to get a clear picture of how students are progressing in the course.
Custom Reports and Intelligent Agents: Brightspace also allows you to create custom reports through Intelligent Agents, which are triggered based on specific conditions like assignment scores or login activity. For example, if a student scores below a certain threshold on a quiz, the Intelligent Agent can automatically send them extra resources or schedule a follow-up to help them catch up.
How Learning Analytics Improves Teaching
By using these analytics tools, instructors gain valuable insights into student engagement and can make informed decisions about how to improve their courses. Here are some ways learning analytics can enhance your teaching:
Identify Strengths and Weaknesses: Analytics tools allow you to see which assignments, quizzes, or content sections are resonating with students and which ones may need refinement. By identifying these patterns, you can adjust your teaching approach or course materials to better support learning.
Monitor Engagement Levels: These tools make it easier to pinpoint where students are engaged or disengaged. If a particular discussion topic or quiz isn’t receiving enough attention, you can explore ways to make it more interactive or provide additional support.
Provide Personalized Support: With real-time data on student performance and engagement, you can offer targeted interventions for students who may be falling behind or struggling with specific topics. This can be as simple as sending additional resources or setting up one-on-one meetings to discuss challenges.
Optimize Course Design: Regularly reviewing learning analytics helps you refine your course design based on actual student behavior. If a large portion of the class consistently struggles with a particular topic or assignment, you can modify the structure to make the material more accessible.
Conclusion
Brightspace’s learning analytics tools give instructors the data they need to make informed decisions that improve student engagement and outcomes. By using these tools, faculty can move beyond basic assessments and get a real-time view of how students are interacting with the course. This enables educators to provide more personalized support, refine course materials, and create a more effective and inclusive learning environment.
For detailed how-to steps in Brightspace, please check out this guide. For more information on how to leverage Brightspace’s learning analytics, reach out to the IT Teaching and Learning Services team at its.uri.edu/tls or attend one of our upcoming training sessions.
Part-Time Faculty Department of Communication Studies
Vince is a Professor Emeritus for the Communication Studies department in the Harrington School of Communication and Media at URI who started his teaching career in 1977. Vince uses Panopto to enhance his online asynchronous course: The Art of Storytelling.
Introduction
Vince Petronio is a part-time professor for the Harrington School of Communication and Media here at URI. Vince started his teaching career in 1977 in Communication Studies, however from 1996 through 2005, Vince had also been the Manager of IT for the Feinstein Providence Campus and was a Program Coordinator for COM. He eventually came back to teaching full-time in January 2006 and maintained his role as Program Coordinator for COM at URI/FPC. Throughout his teaching career, he has taught many courses, including Interpersonal Communication, The Art of Storytelling, Orality in Ancient Greece, Orality in Ancient Rome and Directing Group Performance of Non-Dramatic Literature/Advanced Storytelling. Although now retired, Vince still teaches one of his courses, COM230: The Art of Storytelling as an online asynchronous course.
When teaching The Art of Storytelling, he had gone through three trials on what would work for his course over the years. During the pandemic, initially, with the shift to remote lectures, Vince had his students upload their performance videos to YouTube, setting the videos to “People with the link access.” The students would share these links with Vince, who would then share them within the Zoom call, facilitating a virtual classroom environment. In the second phase, despite a return to face-to-face classes, the necessity for masks posed a challenge for performances. Vince decided to retain the video submission format, where students recorded their performances and shared them in the classroom setting. The third trial involved transitioning to asynchronous classes, where Vince integrated Panopto. This platform allowed Vince to post his lectures through Panopto as well as have students submit their video presentation through Panopto, which gave him the opportunity to view student engagement through Panopto Analytics and make producing an asynchronous course a simpler process.
Teaching Tool Usage
For Vince, Panopto became an invaluable resource in his course. Panopto is a versatile video platform designed to enhance the educational experience by seamlessly integrating into courses and facilitating the recording, management, and streaming of video content. Instructors can capture lectures, presentations, and demonstrations, ensuring students have access to learning materials. Panopto supports interactive features such as quizzes and discussion prompts within videos, promoting active learning and engagement. The platform’s advanced search functionality allows users to find specific content within videos, making it easier for students to review and study key concepts. Its integration with learning management systems enables streamlined access and distribution of content, making it a powerful tool for both in-person and online courses. Panopto’s robust tracking features and analytics provide valuable insights into student engagement and performance, helping educators tailor their instruction and improve learning outcomes. Additionally, Panopto includes tools for closed captioning and a built-in editor for making adjustments to recordings before publishing. It also supports student video submissions, enabling a comprehensive view of class participation and engagement.
Within Vince’s course of The Art of Storytelling, he effectively utilizes Panopto to evaluate student engagement and performance analysis. He leverages Panopto’s comprehensive analytics function to monitor student interactions with both lectures and critiques of student performances. By tracking detailed metrics, such as the duration and frequency of video views, Vince can incorporate these insights into the graded rubric, ensuring students are held accountable for their engagement. Students submit their performance videos through Panopto, allowing Vince to seamlessly integrate these submissions into Brightspace for easy access. Panopto tracks whether students watch the entire lecture, providing Vince with data on who watched, when they watched, and how much they watched. This information is recorded in a spreadsheet, offering a clear overview of class participation and engagement. This tool enables professors to monitor student activity comprehensively, ensuring that all students are staying on track with their coursework. Furthermore, Panopto’s closed captioning feature enhances accessibility, ensuring that all students, regardless of hearing ability, can benefit from the course content. Additionally, this closed captioning feature can allow viewers to watch the videos even if they are in a noisy environment or are working in a quiet zone. Through these functionalities, Vince can maintain a high level of interaction and accountability in his course, even in an online, asynchronous setting.
Panopto offers several significant advantages for both instructors and students. One of the primary benefits is its ability to track whether students have watched entire lectures, providing instructors with valuable insights into student engagement. The platform also generates spreadsheets that document who has watched the videos, which can be particularly useful for keeping track of participation and engagement. Professors have used Panopto for gathering statistics on student viewing habits, including when and how much of the videos students watched. This detailed tracking can help identify students who may need additional support or encouragement. Furthermore, Panopto supports closed captioning and video editing, enhancing accessibility and allowing instructors to create polished and professional lecture recordings. However, there are some drawbacks to using Panopto. At least one student reported issues with video playback due to Wi-Fi bandwidth problems, which can be a significant barrier to accessing the content. Additionally, for accurate statistics tracking, both instructors and students need to be logged into Panopto, which may not always be feasible. Finally, there is some uncertainty regarding the accuracy of the statistics tracking, making it difficult to rely entirely on this data for assessing student engagement. Despite these challenges, Panopto remains a valuable tool for enhancing the online learning experience.
Screenshot of sample usage data from Panopto for a course folder
Student Experience & Feedback
Students have reported positive feedback and experiences using Panopto in Vince Petronio’s course. The platform fosters increased engagement by placing responsibility on the students, requiring them to focus more intently on lectures and performances. This has proven especially beneficial for those with performance anxiety or nerves when speaking in a group setting, as they can record their submissions in a more comfortable environment. Many students appreciate the ease of use, as they only need to upload their videos to Panopto and submit the link in Brightspace. However, some students have encountered challenges with the sharing options within Panopto, needing to ensure they select the proper settings to make their videos viewable. Despite this minor issue, the overall student experience with Panopto has been overwhelmingly positive, with many finding it a convenient and effective tool for their coursework.
