This is my first ever video! So it was a deep learning curve but a great experience!
The background goes, I run a learning technology community group for staff. Last Wednesday in our face-to-face session, my colleague Odette, who is our elearning developer and the media specialist helped ran one for making videos!
We did start with a deliberately bad video made by me to generate some discussions about how “not” to make a video. 😉 Then she walked through tips and things we should do, should watch out for… etc. We had a quick hands on session in the lab, folks who turned up were very engaged! They took the practice recording tasks seriously and we got positive feedback from them.
I thought, it’d be great if I can then show others that, if you try, you can also make a video. It doesn’t need to be very complicated. (So I thought anyway!) Why don’t I make a short video about how to make videos? This would fit nicely in my content module as well as the digital story! The video ended with a call for action, as there are a lot more to talk through and those would be in the content module. But if they’ve done nothing else, they’ve hopefully learnt something.
Quick reflection points… I should have taken my own advice and wrote a script! I don’t present with scripts when I give a talk, but I do rehearse! I thought it’d be the same for filming, I will just wing it without rehearsing. So many unnecessary extra takes later, I realised it is still important to practice first! What a “duh” moment! I also realised, it is so tempting to keep redo it until it is better, over and over again! 😛
It took many many many hours! Making videos is definitely a lot harder than it seems, especially if you want to get to the point and keep it short! At the same time, I think once you get the hang of it, you’d get better at it.
My editing is not great, but it’s good enough for what it is. I do apologise… it is a little beyond me, I think it’d take some more practice to get better.
I also insisted in not using Camtasia for editing. Because it comes with a closer to $300/license price tag, so it becomes quite a cost barrier for people who want to try. If we apply the C (cost) from the SECTION model (Bates, 2014), that is a valid concern for us. So I used a combination of screen recording tools, including our own lecture recording system. Then I ended up with 6 smaller videos, which was pull together using the Windows Movie Maker. That is a software available to our staff for free. You can use it to edit the videos, too but probably not as easy as Snagit. So I did use Snagit to edit the .mp4 files, it does come with a $32 cost but that’s much more affordable.
I shall continue to experiment with different tools, so I’m better equipped with making recommendations to staff when I work with them.
Reference:
Bates, T. (2014). Choosing and using media in education: The SECTIONS model. In Teaching in digital age. Retrieved from https://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/part/9-pedagogical-differences-between-media/