Instructor goals for creating multimedia may include:

• To record a lecture from a face-to-face class for students to reference as they study.
• To supplement course information and enhance student learning.
• To review key points or concepts that students find challenging.
• To record a guest speaker, interview, student presentations, or special event.
• To demonstrate a physical process, skill, or software application.
• To demonstrate the thought process behind solving a problem or answering a question.

Regardless of which of these goals you’re pursuing, the following article contains expert advice that will be useful as you learn how to create your own videos.

Tips and Tricks for Educational Video Creation

Creating good audio and video recordings is a learned skill which will develop with practice. This video describes tips the author wishes she’d known when she started creating educational video:

For more information on the stages of video production, see Behind the Scenes: A Simple Explanation of the Video Production Process.

Tips for Planning and Creating Your Multimedia Resource

• Plan Ahead
• Review evidence-based best practices for creating multimedia resources for learning [link tba].
• Write down a few learning objectives for your desired video or audio recording before you start anything else. What would you like your students to be able to do after watching/listening that they couldn’t do before? This will help you determine what content is important to include in your recording and what is not.
• Based on your learning objectives, make detailed notes, including questions and examples, before you start talking. These notes help you to deliver a smooth presentation and may be used for a transcript. Try to organize your plan in a logical manner.
• Short recordings work much better than long recordings. A good rule of thumb to start with is a 10 minute maximum. This is not to say that you have to fit all the content you would normally deliver in an hour lecture into one 10-minute recording; rather, plan for a series of <10-minute videos that are split up logically by topic. Title them accordingly so that your students can find just the topic they need to review.
• Use recordings to enhance, rather than repeat, the textbook.
• Don’t Date Your Media
• For many video and audio recordings, once you have spent the time to create a good one, you will want to use it and reuse it with your classes until the content itself becomes obsolete. To facilitate this, don’t mention the date of recording, any dates pertinent to the term or due dates. Don’t mention specific assignments or exams, or if you’d like to, make that a separate video so that it can easily be replaced if/when that assignment or exam changes, without re-making the rest of the content in that video.
• Be Yourself
• Your knowledge and enthusiasm make the video or podcast interesting.
• Emote!! Video and audio recordings flatten emotion, so if you emote almost to the point where you feel silly while making the recording, you will come across as normal on screen. If you act normal during the recording, you’ll come across as a bit cardboard.
• Be Aware of Your Sound Quality
• Sound quality is one of the biggest factors our subconscious uses to judge the quality of a recording.
• Speak loudly and clearly; enunciate every word, and use variety in your pitch and inflections.
• Many people have a tendency to lower their volume at the end of every sentence – pay attention to this and try to keep your volume consistent to the very end!
• Record in a quiet place (pay attention to white noise too, as that can be problematic for recorded audio) and use the best quality microphone available.
• If recording classroom lectures, repeat questions from students for the audio recording before answering them.
• Use Clear, Concise Sentences
• If video recordings are viewed on small screens, students may not be able to see your body language or facial expressions as well, just as they might have trouble with this from the back of a large lecture hall. Your words must be very specific.
• Body Language/Facial Expressions
• That being said, body language and facial expressions are important to not neglect in a video recording. It can be hard to remember to use them when speaking to a camera lens in a studio or office instead of to a person, so practice remembering to do this.
• Review and Revise
• Watch and listen to your recordings after you make them. You will notice things about your performance that you didn’t notice while you were recording. This will help you improve your audio and video recording skills with every recording you make.
• Provide Content to Follow Along With
• Provide an outline or PowerPoint slides for note taking. If showing your outline or slides in your video, keep in mind that students may view your recording on the small screen of a mobile device – use font sizes that are large enough to accommodate this.
• Include Images
• Adding diagrams and relevant images to your video enhances learning. When possible, show these on screen while you discuss them.
• Remain Accessible
• Create closed captions or transcripts for your recordings. These make your recording accessible to people who are deaf or have hearing difficulties, but also to people who don’t have access to a quiet place to listen. Please see How to Add Captions to Your Panopto Video for detailed discussion of captioning options and workflows.