That’s a good idea. There are lots of ways you can use videos to enhance your courses and there are a lot of different video types you can choose from.
But where should you start?
If it were me, I would start with a chat with Dan McCallum, from Learning Technologies. He runs the media creation studio there. Dan can help you figure out exactly what type of video would be the most appropriate for what you are trying to do.
In addition, the media creation studio has professional-level equipment that will help you produce high-quality videos. The media creation studio is especially helpful if you are not super confident in your editing and producing skills (also, Dan just got some shiny new equipment).
I know a lot of people have hesitation when it comes to videos. That is often because we reduce video to speaking in front of a camera, which a lot of people are not comfortable doing, myself included.
However, I have used different types of videos over the years (animated ones for lecture content, coding tutorials, course orientation, and others), and students have often commented on how much that helped in addition to the reading).
Finding the right type of video for what you are trying to do is exactly why you should talk to Dan, because there might something you haven’t yet considered and might be worth trying.
But because I’m an annoying know-it-all, here’s my list of things to consider regarding videos.
Look, you don’t have to make videos if you don’t think it will help. I still think a meeting with Dan to go over your options is worth your time (he’s gonna like me when you guys start flooding him with appointment requests).
If you are going to shoot your videos at home or from your office, make sure you have the right hardware and equipment. Laptop mics are not great, and unless you enjoy doing a lot of audio cleaning, it’s better to use a noice-cancelling mic or headset + mic combo. This will also help if you use automatic captioning. These automatic captions will be more accurate if there are no other ambient noises (also unless you enjoy cleaning up your captions). You can get some equipment from the library but I would really consider using the LT media creation studio and leave the library media lab to the students.
If your videos are going to be screen captures, crop your video capture area so it does not show personal information that you would rather not show.
If your video involves your browser, hide your bookmarks toolbar, or any other toolbar, or any bookmark tool that might be visible. If you are like me and you always have 25 tabs open, Close them. If you don’t want to lose those 25 tabs, then, use the OneTab browser extension. Depending on which browser you use (please don’t use Chrome), you will find it under add-ons or extensions. It looks like this:
[Side note the first: ask me about all the add-ons or extensions you should have in your browser to protect your privacy, and also ask me about which browser to use.]
Mute or silence any and all notifications and pop-ups, sound or screen. Nothing is more annoying that having notifications showing on your screen, especially from your social media apps where people might see the kinds of notifications you’re getting and from whom.
[Side note the second: if you’ve set up your browser for privacy, then, that is also where you should review your social media feeds, not the native apps, which are total narcs.]
And you are going to shoot videos, reconcile yourself with the fact that you are going to have to edit. Don’t just shoot a video and just dump it in Blackboard. At the very least, use YuJa to store your videos and organize your video collections. And for most people, YuJa’s limited editing capabilities will be enough to clean your videos, removing unwanted segments, and a few other things. Then, either link, embed, or use the LTI to drop your content in Blackboard.
[Side note the third: have I emphasized enough how much you should not just upload videos directly into Blackboard?]
But again, if you’re unsure about doing your own editing and production, bring your video files to Dan and he can help with that.
And as with everything, practice makes things easier. So, of course, at first, shooting and editing videos might seem like a ton of work, but the more you do it, the easier it gets, honest.
