As some things are starting to return to ‘normal’, our ‘new normal’ for providing lecture content to students will be online.
A useful way to think about lectures is to think about pre-recording and ‘chunking’ content into shorter video presentations that can be reused, both over time, and potentially across different topics. An example could be a video talking about a concept that can then be used across a range of disciplines and contexts.
Pre-recording your material works well in the online space. For example, you can record ahead of time and post your videos to FLO with a narrative that talks to students about how they should be approaching the videos. Your narrative could also bring in more topical information, for example ask your students to view the concept video whilst considering a current event and then follow up with an activity for them to reflect on how the concept applies to the current environment.
You may also like to weave other resources and digital content in with your videos. The Library can support you to source digital resources and there are a range of tools in FLO for creating digital content.
First, consider what the video is for and what it needs to contain. For re-use purposes, the video should only include information that explains, instructs or unpacks a concept. Avoid including content that requires discussion or requires students to stop and write something or look something up then restart the video. The latter can be achieved by grouping your recording with other activities in FLO, eg a discussion forum after students have watched a video.
Next, consider how you will produce your recording. You may have access to green screen technology , and if you haven’t already, you could explore the recording studio located at Sturt. However, green screen recordings aren’t a necessity. In most cases a voice over your presentation can be just as effective. Keep in mind Kaltura allows you to record your presentation and your webcam. Students are then able to choose their preferred view (ie. side by side, screen in screen or presentation only). As this provides greater flexibility to students, this option can be better than green screen. If your lecture is designed to be interactive, consider using Kaltura to prepare videos of any presentation components for students to watch before coming into a Collaborate session for questions and discussions. You can also record the Collaborate session.
Shorter presentations are easier to edit and quicker to upload. You may like to edit the beginning and end of your video, but please don’t feel you need to do specific editing in order to produce a video of very high quality.
Quality will come from carefully considering the content and purpose of the video.
Some tips when using Kaltura to create videos:
- Use keywords (tags) when uploading videos to FLO, this will help with re-use.
- Make sure you publish your videos to the topic Media Vault before embedding into your FLO topic site.
- Use the specially designed Powerpoint template available for online teaching.
And finally, if you have previously delivered lectures in theatres with recording capability, you may need to let your students know where they can now find your recorded lecture content.