Video Tool Spurs Student Engagement
For instructors seeking ways to increase student engagement, Annoto is an interactive video tool that encourages a collaborative learning experience and provides analytics on student usage and performance. Integrating seamlessly with Kaltura, Annoto allows students to add time-tagged annotations to video content and discuss the content with the instructor and their peers. In-video interaction, discussions, and personal notes help facilitate active student learning. Instructors can use video content for assignments, skills assessment, feedback, and peer review.
The dashboard provides comprehensive analytics and actionable insights on learner performance. Analytics include videos showing student activities, average completion rate, and number of engagements. By gaining insights on how your students interact with the video content and each other, you can tailor content accordingly.
Instructor Insights on Annoto
After using Annoto in their courses, two FSU instructors have seen stronger engagement and collaboration from their students. They share their insights below.
"I have used Annoto for over a year and have seen a significant impact on both student engagement and the overall learning experience in my courses. I use Annoto across multiple course formats, including asynchronous lecture videos and skill demonstration videos in both online and main campus courses. One of the most valuable features has been the commenting and personal note functions embedded directly into videos. Students actively use the comment feature to engage more deeply with course content, ask questions, respond to peers, and share reflections about the material. This has helped create a more interactive and collaborative learning environment."
Jessica Greil-Burkhart, LCSW
Associate Teaching Professor
College of Social Work
"Annoto has genuinely changed how I teach my online course. I replaced traditional discussion boards with Annoto-based engagement and haven't looked back. Instead of students posting disconnected responses into a void, they're interacting with the material right as they watch. What I really love is the flexibility: I can choose exactly what kind of engagement fits the content. For deeper, more conceptual topics I'll embed a reflection prompt where students leave their thoughts in the comments and peers can respond, which gets them into genuinely interesting discussions about the material. … Perhaps most importantly, students have brought it up unprompted in their course feedback semester after semester. That kind of organic positive feedback is pretty rare, and it says a lot!"
Val Wongsomboon, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Human Development & Family Science, Anne’s College
How to Get Started
Before using Annoto, you will need to enable the tool in Canvas. Read our support article for step-by-step instructions. For more information, including video tutorials and best practices, visit the Student Engagement Tools in Canvas page. For assistance, contact the ODL technical support team at canvas@fsu.edu or 850-644-8004.
