Overview
NEOMED offers video recording tools and additional resources for educators looking to create effective instructional videos. This article aims to cover:
- Considering the options and technology in creating instructional videos
- Preparing and recording your video
- Editing and trimming your video
- Captioning and sharing your video
Options for Creating Instructional Videos
Below are two basic options for creating instructional videos. Consider which option will work best for meeting your students’ needs and fulfilling your instructional goals and objectives. You should also consider what constraints might affect the option you select.
Slideshow with Audio
Combining audio alongside a slideshow can be a great way to engage students and improve their learning experience. This method has the lowest barrier of entry as NEOMED provides Microsoft 365 and screen recording technology. You may already have presentation slides you've used before, so all you need to do is capture a screen recording of your slides while delivering your presentation verbally.
Slideshow with Instructor Video
This method incorporates both a video recording of yourself and your slides. Your visual presence adds an additional layer of connection as you deliver your content, which in turn can increase student engagement.
Choosing Technology for Recording your Video
There is no singular piece of technology or process for creating instructional videos. When considering the right tool for creating your video, think about your comfort level, knowledge, and expertise using available resources and technologies. Additionally, consider the overall purpose of your instructional content and what you’d like to accomplish or include in your video. Some tools are easier to use and master, while others offer more options, higher-quality recordings, and greater flexibility.
Below are three options for recording video content that many instructors find useful and attainable.
Zoom
Most instructors have become familiar with Zoom at NEOMED, so it's often a first choice for recording simple instructional videos. This is one of the easier, more versatile options for producing video content. Simply start a meeting with yourself and select Record to Cloud.
There are numerous ways to approach your Zoom video lectures, including:
- Direct address: If you wish to record a direct first-person address to your students, select Record from the bottom toolbar and record yourself speaking directly to students.
- Slideshow lectures: If you wish to record narration with a slideshow lecture, select Share Screen.
- Whiteboard lectures: If you wish to record a Zoom whiteboard lecture, from the bottom toolbar select Share Screen and click Whiteboard.
However you approach your video in Zoom, you will need to select a recording option by clicking the More drop-down list of options. We recommend the Record to the Cloud option. This option allows you to record and store your video directly into the Zoom cloud, automatically transcribe cloud recordings, and then uploaded to EchoVideo for long-term storage and shared with your student. Zoom cloud recordings are automatically deleted after 120 days.
Learn more about recording videos in Zoom.
PowerPoint
Instructional videos can be recorded in PowerPoint, either with or without an accompanying video of you delivering the presentation. This method is the lowest barrier to entry and offers a surprising number of options. You can record your entire slide deck in one go or record each slide individually. Once exported to an .mp4 file, you'll have a polished recording. Because NEOMED has a limited storage capacity, we recommend hosting your video on the university-supported media platform, EchoVideo.
Learn more about creating a presentation and recording in PowerPoint.
EchoVideo
EchoVideo is a simple tool that allows you to record your desktop’s display, webcam, and microphone to create engaging lecture content. This tool may take more time to master than Zoom or PowerPoint, but it allows for greater versatility and higher quality. You can easily upload lectures to EchoVideo manually. Once uploaded to EchoVideo, you can trim your recordings and utilize the robust backend features of EchoVideo including analytics and polls.
Learn more about EchoVideo
ScreenPal
ScreenPal is an application for macOS and Windows that records your screen, webcam, and/or microphone. You can record a PowerPoint, or demonstrate a tool directly from your computer. When you’re finished, you can save the recording to your desktop or OneDrive folder, then publish it In EchoVideo, Canvas, or on another video publishing site.
Learn more about ScreenPal.
Planning and Creating Your Video
Producing an instructional video involves several steps. Preparation tasks typically account for about half of the total production time. The actual recording takes about one-third of the total time. The remainder involves post-production tasks such as tweaking the recorded video, adding captions, uploading it, and sharing it with your students.
Before you record
Preparation is essential to creating quality instructional videos. The following recommendations will help ensure you are equipped to record your lecture.
Make an outline.
First and foremost, you need a quality outline, script, or storyboard for each lecture recording. Keep your learning outcomes at the forefront as you decide what you will and won't include in your video. It is a good idea to break down longer lectures into smaller chunks to maintain students' interest as they progress through the course content. A brief video can be followed by knowledge checks, reflection questions, discussion, or other activities that engage students and monitor their understanding. You can also embed these engagement opportunities within your video, as explained below.
Create your slides.
Preparing engaging slides, and ensuring they are accessible, is a crucial step in prerecording.
Keep the following suggestions in mind as you make your slides:
- Simple and concise. Don’t overcrowd slides with text. Use keywords or phrases, expanding on each item verbally in your lecture. Organize ideas using bulleted or numbered lists.
- Media-rich. As they say, sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. Incorporate a variety of media to convey your message. Including relevant photos, graphs, charts, audio, and video will add interest and variety and make your video more engaging for students.
- Accessible to all learners. Use a design template that incorporates white space and has a high-contrast background and font color. Always use the built-in slide layouts in the template for titles and content; this ensures that screen readers will read each slide's elements in a logical order. Learn more about making PowerPoint slides accessible.
Test your setup.
You might be surprised to learn that expensive equipment does not necessarily translate into a quality instructional video. More important is the placement of the microphone and cameras, and, if the lecture includes a video of you, the lighting. Before recording a lecture, test your setup to ensure you have quality sound without any distracting audio feedback. Also, make sure the camera is positioned close enough to capture your facial expressions and pay attention to the background of your video. If there are any distractions or personal items that you don't want to be seen, you can reposition the camera or use a background filter.
Lastly, make sure your lighting doesn't cast harsh shadows on your face; it should be neither too dark nor too bright. Even minor adjustments in lighting can greatly impact the effectiveness of your video.
Recording Tips
Keep in mind the recording best practices outlined below to make your instructional videos clear and engaging.
Keep it short.
As noted above, best practices suggest that instructional videos should be no more than 6-9 minutes in length and focused on a manageable amount of content to reduce cognitive overload (Mayer & Moreno, 2003). If you have "nice to know" content or additional examples you'd like to share that aren't integral to your learning outcome(s), consider including this information in a supplemental reading or video.
Speak normally and provide a clear agenda.
Begin each instructional video by providing an explicit agenda for your students, noting the importance of the topic as well as the video's scope and organization. Clearly call out your introduction, transitions, and conclusion. Throughout the recording, use your normal speaking pace as if students are present.
Create guided or embedded questions.
Online learners do not have the benefit of asking questions in real-time when they don't understand a concept. Additionally, it can be difficult to gauge whether students are comprehending the material without visual cues. To address this, you should include comprehension or knowledge checks at the end of a video or module. Comprehension checks can include:
- Low-stakes quiz questions
- Answering questions about a case or scenario
- Completing a worksheet on a specific topic
To help students test their comprehension during the video, reflection questions or example quiz questions can be built into the slide deck.
Editing Your Video
Even the most seasoned can find it challenging to record a video without making any mistakes or experiencing moments of silence. Recording instructional videos – even casual or unscripted videos – requires a considerable amount of precision and patience. Therefore, it's natural to encounter mistakes, such as stutters, misstatements, blown takes, and long pauses. Attempting to record a video in one continuous, perfect take is virtually impossible.
If you come across some minor errors while creating your instructional content that does not significantly affect the learning experience, it is okay to leave them in the final product. Though such mistakes may appear obvious or distracting to you, students usually don't notice or care. On the contrary, what we consider “errors” might help humanize you and make your instructional content more engaging (Darby; Guo et al.).
However, if you believe these mistakes will detract from the overall learning experience, you may want to consider using one of the tools outlined below to edit your video. These tools not only allow you to correct mistakes but also offer basic editing features that can enhance the overall quality of your instructional content, including the following:
- Cutting and trimming: Trim out some of the “dead air” at the beginning or end of the recording or cut out any “bad takes” that might have occurred during your recording session.
- Splitting clips: Split long clips or videos into smaller, more discreet segments, exerting better control over the pacing and flow of your material.
- Adding visual elements: Incorporate visuals like slides, images, or intertitles to further inform or clarify your argument. Please make sure that any elements used in your video directly align with the content.
- Controlling audio and video quality: Edit and refine your video and audio, using tools such as noise reduction, equalization, and visual enhancements to make your recordings clearer, bolder, and more polished.
Editing Options
There are several tools you can use to edit your video. Here are some of our recommendations:
Zoom
Zoom has limited editing power but does allow you to trim added space that might be at the beginning or conclusion of your video. As mentioned before, Zoom cloud recordings are automatically deleted after 120 days, so be sure to upload your cloud recordings to EchoVideo for long-term storage.
Learn more about editing Zoom cloud recordings.
PowerPoint
Recording your video in PowerPoint also gives you access to the program’s integrated video editing features. These provide a convenient, user-friendly method for trimming, cutting, or formatting your video directly within the presentation software. After recording, you can easily:
- Trim out unwanted content
- Remove audio clips
- Rearrange your slides
- Resize the video itself
You can also delete your audio recordings on individual slides and re-record it. PowerPoint also allows for the insertion of annotations, captions, and transitions. This streamlined process simplifies video editing, making it accessible even to those without an extensive background in video editing.
Learn more about editing in PowerPoint.
EchoVideo
Uploading your video to EchoVideo gives you access to the platform’s integrated web editor. The web editor provides a wide range of editing options, granting you the opportunity to fully customize your video in an accessible, user-friendly fashion including:
- Easily trim out segments from the beginning, middle, or end of your video
- Add transitions (fades to black, cross dissolves, etc.) to make edits less noticeable or distracting
- Break videos down into briefer, more manageable segments by adding chapter stops or chunking them down into a linear sequence of shorter videos
- Edit preexisting slides, cut them out, or add new ones
Unlike other third-party editing software, EchoVideo allows you to edit your video as many times as you would like without re-uploading the entire video multiple times. This is another great and easy-to-master option for those without an extensive background in video editing.
Learn more about using EchoVideo’s web editor.
ScreenPal
ScreenPal's Video Editor includes many editing tools that allow you to edit your entire video in just a few clicks, such as changing the size, crop, and the style of your video as well as timeline editing tools that allow you to edit a section of your screencast recording.
Learn more about using ScreenPal editing tools.
Captioning Your Video
Adding captions will benefit your students, including those for whom English is a second language, those new to your discipline and its terminology, and those who may simply be watching your lecture in a crowded or loud environment.
Below are recommendations for adding captions by tool:
Zoom
Zoom automatically creates transcripts for your cloud recordings. Transcriptions are downloadable in .vtt format and can create closed captions when uploaded to EchoVideo along with your Zoom recording.
Learn more about uploading your Zoom recording and transcriptions to EchoVideo.
PowerPoint & YouTube
PowerPoint does not provide closed captioning of recorded videos. One method of adding closed captioning is to upload your video to YouTube, which will add closed captioning to your video within 24 hours.
Learn more about adding captions using YouTube.
ScreenPal
By creating a written script in advance, you can utilize ScreenPal's Scripted Recording feature to generate accurate captions in your screencast recording.
Learn more about adding captions using ScreenPal.
Uploading and Sharing Your Video
Once you’ve finished recording, editing, and captioning your video, it is time to complete the final steps of this process: uploading and sharing your video with students. Videos should be uploaded to a streaming platform rather than into Canvas itself as videos are quite large and can quickly max out your storage quota. The easiest, most secure, and most accessible option for storing your instructional videos is EchoVideo, NEOMED’s supported platform for storing and sharing multimedia content.
If you used EchoVideo to record and edit your video, the recording itself should already be available on the platform. However, if you opt to record your video via PowerPoint, Zoom, or another tool, you will need to export or download the finished video as an .mp4 file and upload it to EchoVideo. There are many resources available for doing this in Zoom and PowerPoint.
After uploading a video to EchoVideo you can share the video with students, which can be made available via the Echo360 link found in the navigation bar. You can also embed videos into a Canvas page via the EchoVideo integration in the rich content editor.
Learn more about adding EchoVideo presentations to Canvas.