Reaching students with video content is more important than ever. We don’t all have access to a university learning commons to help us make the videos we need. I will walk you through how to create videos that are instructional, budget-friendly and closed captioned with only a few programs and know-how needed.
The A to Z of Making Videos on a Budget
Using video to help reach your students is only going to become more important as we transition to more and more online-only or online-heavy content. Making videos that your students want to watch is very important to the teaching process, but you need to be able to make them without spending all your time (and your paycheck) on them too. The Teaching Commons or Education Technology group at your school might be overwhelmed with requests so learning how to make videos on your own can help you really speed up the process.
Start with using any camera or video capture tool you have access to. I use a handi-cam, webcam or even my phone to capture my video. Use the best sound possible. That is, if you have access to a microphone, use it. For most applications, you can use a readily available headset microphone. They provide great sound-quality at a great price. The difference between a good video and a great video is often the sound and not the picture quality itself.
If you are using a camera there are a few tips I have to make your videos more professional looking. 1) Turn the camera on and then walk in front of it. Get yourself centered in the screen and then pause for a few seconds while looking at the camera. This will give you a place to start your video. You will snip off all the video of you walking to the front and clearing your throat in editing. You will repeat this at the end of your video. Pause for just a few seconds while looking at the camera. 2) Put a fairly bright desk lamp or other light source to the right of you but out of camera range. 3) Put a lower wattage lamp to your left or have another light source that can fill in your left side light.
4) Use a phone, tablet or printed out script or outline to keep you on-track. Locate the script just above the camera or to the right of it. Avoid reading the script verbatim but refer to it as needed. 5) Keep it short. Five minutes maximum per video. If you have multiple things to talk about then break them into smaller portions and record them separately. 6) Use a bland background. I like to use a pull-down curtain or other window covering but use whatever you have. A nice blank wall is a good place to record.
Once you have the video created you need to edit it and add closed captions. There are many programs out there for editing video, but I like to use two of them most often.
Screencast-o-matic (SOM) and Format Factory. Screencast-o-matic is a simple but powerful video editing program. You can edit your videos and add a few embellishments in the process. For instance, I teach many students whose first language is not English. When I use an important word or a phrase that is complicated, I add that phrase to a pop up that lasts long enough for the student to see exactly what it is I said. When I talk about going to a certain URL I add that URL in large print to the screen so they are able to see it more clearly. SOM also has a nice feature in that the cursor has a large ring around it when you move it. This make it much easier to see on the screen and draw attention to where you are pointing. (This can be turned off as well.)
SOM also allows you to put closed captions on your video with only a little trouble. The video hosting company my university uses (through no fault of anyone) does not do a very good job of placing the closed captions. Instead of being located on the video itself they are shrunk down and put under the video in impossibly small typeface. To fix this problem,
I use SOM to create the closed-captions and then save the resulting SubRip Title (SRT)
file to my machine and then use Format Factory (A free program) to encode the captions on the video file. It is an extra step that I think is well worth the effort.
Creating and captioning videos is not the time-consuming and impossible task it can be made out to be. By following a few simple steps, you can create your own closed-captioned videos and skip the line at the Learning Commons.
LEARNING GOALS / PARTICIPATION
Attendees will be able to list cheap or free technology used to create and edit instructional videos.
Attendees will be able to define best practices for keep videos’ instructional quality while saving time and money.
Attendees will be able to articulate how to easily create closed-captions for their videos.
I will provide links to the videos that I have created using these techniques.
I will also create a video that will have a quiz at the end that will ask them to tell me five things that I did wrong in my video creation. I will also provide a link to a Google Doc where attendees can leave me their questions as well as comments.