Video for Teaching + Learning

Why Is video so important?

Video is a pow­er­ful way to com­mu­ni­cate, share, explore, assess and engage learn­ers in learn­ing expe­ri­ences. One of video’s ben­e­fits is the abil­i­ty to reply, rewind, review what some­one has said often with closed cap­tions so all learn­ers (regard­less of lan­guage, abil­i­ty, access, band­width) can engage in learn­ing. Here are a few arti­cles, videos and some of the best web­sites and resources to high­light some key com­po­nents.

  • 99 Tips for Cre­at­ing Sim­ple and Sus­tain­able Edu­ca­tion­al Videos |  Karen Cos­ta — Ama­zon Book Link
  • Ideas and Strate­gies for Using Video in the Class­room: UBC Fac­ul­ty of Arts — Web­page
    • Scroll down page to see exam­ples with tabbed sec­tions
  • Effec­tive Edu­ca­tion­al Videos | Cen­ter for Teach­ing | Van­der­bilt Uni­ver­si­ty — Web­page
  • Asyn­chro­nous Video: A Pow­er­ful Way to Teach, Present and Com­mu­ni­cate with Stu­dents | Fac­ul­ty Focus  Web­page
  • It’s not pro­duc­tion qual­i­ty that counts in edu­ca­tion­al videos — here’s what stu­dents val­ue most | The Con­ver­sa­tion — Web­page
  • Unbound­ed by Time: Under­stand­ing How Asyn­chro­nous Video can be Crit­i­cal to Learn­ing Suc­cess | Edu­cause — Web­page
  • Teach­ing in a Dig­i­tal Age v. 3 | Chap­ter 8.4 Video by Tony Bates — Web­page
  • Effec­tive Edu­ca­tion­al Videos: Prin­ci­ples and Guide­lines for Max­i­miz­ing Stu­dent Learn­ing from Video Con­tent | Life Sci­ence Research Paper — Web­page
  • Teach­ing Edu­ca­tion­al Mate­ri­als: Teach­ing with Acces­si­ble Video | Nation­al Cen­tre on Acces­si­ble Edu­ca­tion­al Mate­ri­als — Web­page
  • Michael Wesch’s lessons on how to build bet­ter videos (from YouTu­bers) about how to engage stu­dents online embed­ded below:
Tips for Creating Video
  • Don’t need com­plex equip­ment
    • Cam­era: smart­phone cam­era, web cam, using Blue­Jeans to record, or Go Pro cam­era
    • Light­ing: nat­ur­al light — win­dow, ring light, lots of good lamps
    • Tri­pod: tape a smart­phone to a win­dow to have nat­ur­al light while nar­rat­ing, pile up some books to hold cam­era, put web­cam on top of a lamp shade
  • Use plat­forms you have access to
    • Kaltura Cap­ture (free cap­ture tool to grab video)
    • Microsoft Stream (part of 365 Suite if logged in with NIC account)
    • Con­vert Pow­er­Point slide decks with build-in audio — to MP4 video
    • Screen­cast-o-mat­ic or Cam­ta­sia or oth­er low cost soft­ware to use
  • Con­sid­er these Tips for Film­ing Suc­cess
  • Plan out your scripts and prac­tice a few times
    • Use con­ver­sa­tion­al style
    • Speak rel­a­tive­ly quick­ly and with enthu­si­asm
    • Make the mate­r­i­al feel like it is cus­tomized, rel­e­vant and relat­ed to the course
    • Inte­grate ques­tions into the video to keep peo­ple on their toes
    • Stay on script
  • Aim for 2–5 min­utes for opti­mal time peo­ple will view your videos
    • Videos can be longer, but will get less view­ing time
    • More and small­er videos are eas­i­er to digest
  • Upload to a stream­ing serv­er and share!
    • Kaltura (MyMedia inside of Bright­space or NIC Medi­a­Space via https://video.nic.bc.ca)
      • no adver­tise­ments, no copy­ing on mul­ti­ple servers around world (like YouTube), con­trol over your con­tent
    • Grab embed code or embed via Bright­space OR pub­lish video to your Medi­a­Gallery for that course
    • Label, tag, explain, add book­marks to video, quiz ques­tions etc.
    • Track view plays and usage
  • Keep going, evolv­ing and exper­i­ment­ing
Examples of Using Video in Your Post-Secondary Courses: Created by You, Students or Others in the World
Student-Generated Videos

Videos designed, devel­oped and record­ed sole­ly by stu­dents as activ­i­ties, exer­cis­es or assess­ments in a course. 

  • Any video type below but done by a stu­dent rather than an instruc­tor!
  • Cre­ate a video explain­ing con­cepts in own words
  • Con­duct a video inter­view from a sub­ject-mat­ter expert
  • Record quick respons­es to open-end­ed ques­tions
  • Cre­ate a video blog web­site with Word­Press
  • Record an exper­i­ment done at home or in class and nar­rate find­ings
  • Devel­op a slide deck teach­ing the class a core con­cept and nar­rate via a video
  • Cre­ate a mini-doc­u­men­tary on a top­ic like this one

 

Way Finding / Navigational Videos

Videos that help ori­ent and out­line a par­tic­u­lar­ly com­plex or new learn­ing envi­ron­ment.

  • Use screen­cast­ing to give stu­dents an overview of how to use a web­site to sign up for an account
  • Tour of the parts of an online course as seen below

 

Get-to-Know-You/Welcome Videos

Videos that help peo­ple get to know each oth­er.

  • Intro­duc­tion of instruc­tor to class (Wel­come Video)
  • Wel­come Back video (from a uni­ver­si­ty Chan­cel­lor to his stu­dents)
How-To Videos

Videos that help peo­ple learn how to do some­thing — for a course or class or con­cept.

  • Step-by-step instruc­tions of how to use a piece of soft­ware through screen­cast­ing video
  • Video about how to do a par­tic­u­lar task with a piece of equip­ment shot with camera/tripod
Explanation Videos

Videos that pro­vide more in depth expla­na­tion, pos­si­bly sim­pli­fied or in easy-to-under­stand terms with the aid of visu­als etc.

  • Instruc­tor work­ing through a prob­lem (worked prob­lems) or walk through a com­plex dia­gram
  • TEDTalk videos sim­pli­fy­ing com­plex top­ics
  • Khan Acad­e­my videos like this one on the impor­tance of water for life or embed­ded below
  • Instruc­tor talks out loud all the think­ing process­es they are going through to explain a con­cept
  • Stu­dents explain their response to a math prob­lem by talk­ing through their think­ing and how they arrived at a solu­tion
  • Teacher explain­ing top tips or sug­ges­tions like this one by Michael Wesch about Tips for Teach­ing Online

 

Consolidation and Review Videos

Videos that help con­sol­i­date, sum­ma­rize and /or review key con­cepts.

  • Build a con­cept map of all the key com­po­nents in a mod­ule or course (but then remove some) and use nar­ra­tion to explain what you have and ask stu­dents to fill in miss­ing pieces
  • Review key con­cepts from a mod­ule or class with slides and nar­ra­tion
  • Cre­ate a whole course sum­ma­ry video with slides and nar­ra­tion to cap­ture the essence of the course
Demonstration or Tutorial Videos

Videos that are focused on some­one doing a demon­stra­tion of a task or activ­i­ty

  • Demon­strat­ing how to do an applied learn­ing activ­i­ty with a tool or piece of equip­ment
  • Instruc­tor demon­strat­ing how to do some learn­ing task
  • Exam­ple: Khan Acad­e­my — expla­na­tion of pho­to­syn­the­sis

 

Presentation Videos

Videos that cap­ture or record a class, course, guest speak­er etc.

  • Video used to cap­ture a class
Student Assessment Videos

Videos of either stu­dents demon­strat­ing their learn­ing or instruc­tors shar­ing their feed­back

  • Instruc­tor pro­duces a short cus­tomized video shar­ing how stu­dent is doing in class so far
  • Stu­dent pro­duces a sum­ma­ry of how well they are doing explain­ing with exam­ples
  • More thoughts on video feed­back via this arti­cle, Back to Feed­back Basics Using Video Record­ings