Creating and Using VideosKhadija Mahsud, Instructional Consultant, CTL

Nayef Alyafei, Assistant Professor, PETE Mohammad AlGammal, Technical Lab Coordinator, MEEN

May 2021

Today’s ContributorsThank you!

Dr. Nayef AlyafeiAssistant Professor

Petroleum Engineering Program

Mohammad AlGammalTechnical Laboratory CoordinatorMechanical Engineering Program

Presentation

Video Types - an informal overview

Dr. Alyafei’s video making process

Microlectures

Mohammad AlGammal’s video making process

Resources (screen recording, editing etc.)

Video ‘Types’ - an informal overview

1. Record yourself (video or audio) talking about housekeeping matters- Here’s what’s coming on the exam- Here’s how to get started on assignment X- Next week, we will …

2. Record an introductory video talking about your passion for your field, record check ins to build

community

3. Record a live class and upload portions of it for students to watch/review later*

4. Screen capture + voice-over of you doing something on your computer

5. Create a video on a topic/theme (recorded, animated, screen-captured, etc.)6. Assign students a video created by someone else

- as homework- as revision- as an introduction to a concept that will be further developed in class)

Who is the audience?

- Students that specific semester

- Students enrolled in the course in any semester

- General public

*FERPA/Zoom Recordings

This pdf has simple instructions for how to record class without capturing either the video or the names of the students connected in the session:

FERPA/Zoom Tutorial

Email servicedesk@qatar.tamu.edufor local Zoom support

Microlectures

Dr. AlYafei’s videos can be characterized as microlectures.

They’re short and revolve around one very specific subject.

Khan Academy, TED-ED

7 Things You Should Know About Microlectures - EDUCAUSE pdf (2012)

Motivation Behind PetroHow

During the COVID-19 pandemic, I noticed that the students are not retaining the same amout of knowledge as they used do.

This in return, caused a deficiency in mastering subsequent courses.

I have always wanted to create an open-source platform to educate and inspire others.

Plan

• Create educational videos (3 minutes or less) to cover a certain topic from my course.

•All the videos should be animated and supported by a voice-over to explain the process.

Procedure

1. Brainstorm the concept and mentally form the story.2. Write down the script.3. Record the voice-over and edit/enhance the audio using Audacity software (open-access software).

Procedure4. Create the art objects using Adobe Illustrator/PowerPoint.

Microsoft PowerPoint Adobe Illustrator

Procedure4. Create the animation using PowerPoint

Microsoft PowerPointAdd animation to slides - PowerPoint

Procedure5. Compile the animation segments with the voice-over and add some touches using Adobe Premiere Pro

Adobe Premiere Pro

Procedure6. Upload the video to YouTube

Video Example

Introduction to Petrophysics

Notes on Dr. AlYafei’s Videos

Resources for Adobe - VCU Community Classes, AlJazeera Academy, YouTube

Educators get a discount of up to 60% on Adobe software

Adobe Creative Cloud for students and teachers

YouTube is available to all via TAMU Google Apps - you can create unlisted videos only viewable by those who have a link to the videohttps://google.tamu.edu/ if you’re not ready to make videos “for the public” yet

One Minute Intro to Micro-Lectures

Started with screen captures

Stoichiometry Made Easy: Stoichiometry Tutorial Part 1

Briefly features a classic ‘slide’

Microlectures

Recording technical illustrative videos for remote teaching

● As a consequence of the the lock-down caused by the pandemic, it was prohibited to have students on campus for almost a year.

● The MEEN department decided to record all the hands-on experiments with complete explanation and details for the students to replace their physical presence in the labs and to be used as review material.

● The recordings were used during online Zoom lab sessions and they gave the next-best experience to being present physically in the lab.

Target

The target was to create a set of videos that fulfil the following:

1. Show the equipment in complete detail.2. Be self-explanatory and show all the involved steps.3. Avoid voice-over explanations and rely on annotations.4. Easy to adjust/edit/correct/update.

My previous experience in video recording and editing:

Almost none!

Resources

For this task, I used the following:

Hardware:

1- My mobile phone.

2- A full size tripod.

Software:

1- Camtasia by TechSmith.

2- Powerpoint.

3- Photo editing software.

Planning the videos

For these videos, I planned the recording as follows:

1- Videos: Short clips, no sound (unless relevant). This made it easy to reshoot if the result was not satisfactory.

2- Avoiding vocal explanation: This also made it easier to add annotated text and graphics and eliminated the accent boundaries that might make it hard to understand. Also it allowed for ease of changing and/or updating the content.

3- Rely on a layer-based time frame software to stitch everything together and generate decent quality productions.

Invested time

While Camtasia was very easy to learn in a few minutes. Preparing/designing a video can be a very time consuming process, so is editing the video after recording.

The first video took almost 3 days to complete with a satisfactory result. But the following few videos, each took less than a day to complete due to the repetitive nature of all the videos.

People with more skills and/tools can produce much more creative videos which would consume more time.

Improvements

● One thing I would improve is to use 2-3 lights sources. Most of the videos seemed dark because they were shoot in the basement labs.

● I would have another phone and tripod record from a different angle.

Resources:

Texas A&M Software Center

- Camtasia is available to TAMUQ employees through the TAMU software website for a very low cost.

- Free photo editing software are in abundance, but I use Paint.net or Gimp.

How to make your online lectures look great (if you’re using a camera/more advanced set up)

Sign up for their checklist: Get The Lecture Quality Checklist

Resources - Look and Feel

6 Tips for Recording Video by Michelle Pacansky-Brockis licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Based on a work at http://brocansky.com/6-tips-recording-video-infographic.

Resources - Look and Feel

Resources - Free Screen Recording Options

Apple has its own screen recording function and iMovie is a good, basic video editor

The X Box Game Bar on Windows can screen record

Zoom

PowerPoint

Press Windows Button and G

Xbox game bar will record apps

PowerPoint has its own recording functions

Resources - Editing

iMovie is a good, basic video editor (Apple users)

QuickTime Player (How-to videos, Apple users)

Microsoft Video Editor (very basic) Note: MovieMaker is no longer supported

OpenShot - free, open source

Canva - templates, images, objects

Resources - Objects/Graphs

Powerpoint

Canva - templates, images, objects

Biorender - via TAMU, good science resources

Resources - Free Animation Tools

Powtoon

Animaker

… plan and write out your script, cartoon animations may trivialize your content if not done well

Keep it Simple/Start Small

How I record written math solution videos

Stats from 6.9 million viewing sessions from 4 different EdX courses …

Engagement

How MOOC Video Production Affects Student Engagement

Now what?

Byte sized Canvas: 4 Ways to Make Sure Students Are Watching Your Videos

Embed them in the LMS – tracking function, people have written scripts for viewing all students in one go

Tie it to a grade (homework, quiz, or in-class problem solving based on video)

Give students something to do after watching it (1 –2 questions, point them to another resource, have them post a question on the discussion board)

Create a space for students to post videos they find useful

Rule of thumb: every minute of video counts as two –three minutes of student time

Now what?

Byte sized Canvas: 4 Ways to Make Sure Students Are Watching Your Videos

Embed them in the LMS – tracking function, people have written scripts for viewing all students in one go

Tie it to a grade (homework, quiz, or in-class problem solving based on video)

Give students something to do after watching it (1 –2 questions, point them to another resource, have them post a question on the discussion board)

Create a space for students to post videos they find useful

Rule of thumb: every minute of video counts as two –three minutes of student time

If you record 50 minutes of content (whether as chunks or in one go) you’re expecting students to devote at least 100 minutes to watching it .. in other words, don’t record a 50 minute lecture unless you’re also delivering it live