July 25, 2023 • 36 mins
This week, we are discussing the why and how of creating effective instructional videos for your classroom. We'll share some considerations for creating videos, as well as tools you might want to use and tips and tricks to help you along the way.
If you like what you hear, we would love it if you could share this episode with a colleague or friend. And make sure you subscribe so that you don’t miss out on any new content! And consider supporting the show by buying us a coffee or two!
We would love to hear from you – leave a comment on our website OR check out our FLIPGRID!
Featured Content
**For detailed show notes, please visit our website at https://edugals.com/67**
- Personal not professional!
- Why?
- Learning in a mastery-based classroom
- Create a clone of yourself
- Frees up your time in the classroom to help your students
- Access to videos anytime, anywhere
- Helps with absences
- Considerations
- Determine your learning goal BEFORE hitting record
- Keep it targeted to a single learning goal
- Use your curriculum docs to help with planning - Unit Planning Template
- Use lots of purposeful visuals and minimize text on your slides
- Add interactivity - questions, pause and connect - Screencastify interactive questions in E064
- Notes - differentiated for support levels needed (freehand, scaffolds, sentence starters, sentence frames, cloze, etc)
- Provide guiding questions BEFORE watching the video
- Retrieval practice for note taking
- Make it personal, include your face and your personality
- Keep recording time short, 6-9 minutes is ideal and less for elementary
- Try out animations to control the flow of information
- Include the big picture and progression
- Recording Process
- Create your slides, docs, and plan it all out
- Collaborate with others and create slide decks as a course team
- Create an outline for your recording (use speaker notes in Slides)
- Go for done, not perfect - mistakes are okay!
- EdTech Tools
- Presentation Tools: Google Slides, Explain Everything, Prezi, Powerpoint, Keynote, Genial.ly
- Recording Tools: Meet, Teams, Zoom, Screencastify, Screencast-o-matic, Loom, Flipgrid Shorts (use your screen as your virtual background), Explain Everything, OBS Studio, Quick Time Player
- Learn the keyboard shortcuts!
- iPad & Apple pencil - use an external microphone or headset with microphone
- Above all else, use tools that meet your specific needs!
Connect with EduGals:
- Twitter @EduGals
- Rachel @dr_r_johnson
- Katie @KatieAttwell
- EduGals Website
- Support the show
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Rachel (00:25):
Welcome to the Edge U Gals podcast.
We are your co-host RachelJohnson and
Katie (00:31):
Katie Atwell.
We are here to bring you tipsand tricks to help you integrate
technology into your classroom.
Rachel (00:40):
In this episode, we are talking all about how to create
effective instructional videosfor your classroom.
We're going to tell
Katie (00:48):
you why this is important, and then we're also
going to share some tips as wellas some tools that you can use
when creating your
Rachel (00:55):
videos.
Let's get started.
This week, Katie and I are backand we're talking all about
creating effective instructionalvideos today.
So we're kind of going down thispath of mastery based learning
(01:15):
in our last couple of episodes.
And so we thought that we oughtto talk about creating
instructional videos becausereally, I.
That provides you with thestructure and flexibility to be
able to do mastery based gradingin your classroom in the first
place.
Katie (01:31):
Yeah.
So we'll kind of go over thewhy, obviously we'll start with
that, um, and then we'll talkabout some best practices and
whatnot.
I, I do find that like this, It,it's really important to know
how to make good videos becauseif your videos aren't good, then
the mastery based isn't going tobe good, if that makes sense.
Like kids aren't going to engageif the videos are absolutely
(01:53):
terrible and too overwhelming,or whatever the case may be.
So I think that it's reallyimportant to, to make sure that
you can do, you know, theseshort effective videos to help
Rachel (02:04):
make this possible.
Yeah, and let's preface this alittle bit so that, you know, we
don't get people checking outright away at the beginning of
our episode, but we are nottalking about high quality, no
professional level productionvideos.
We are not talking about that.
We are talking about creatingthose videos that you can use
that are not going to take you aton of time.
(02:27):
And so we don't want youthinking that we want you to
create these.
You know, green screen effect,like all this like crazy stuff
cuz that is not what we aretalking about today.
It's just how to kind ofstructure your slide decks if
you're using slide decks foryour videos and, and how to
think about putting together andchunking out content.
(02:48):
So it's.
Easy and digestible for yourstudents?
Yes.
Let's
Katie (02:52):
be clear, we don't need to be movie producers here.
That's not what we're looking todo, but there's still a fine
line as to like what to include,what not to include, how long,
like I'm talking about you wantstudents to watch.
You don't want them to watch andthen kind of stop watching and
learning.
(03:12):
You kind there.
There is a happy medium in termsof how you create these
Rachel (03:17):
videos.
So let's talk about why, why wewanna create instructional
videos in the first place.
So for me
Katie (03:23):
it's, well, the why is the learning so, In a mastery
based classroom, the learning isgoing to be through these
instructional videos for themost part.
Um, I will have small grouptargeted instruction based on,
you know, the needs of thestudents, and perhaps I need to
present it in a different way,et cetera.
But you know, for the most part,these students will be learning
(03:43):
at their own pace and masteringthese skills through the use of
these.
Short instructional videos
Rachel (03:49):
and to take that a little bit further, I sort of
see this as I'm creating a cloneof myself in, in my classroom so
I can be helping other studentswhile my students are learning
from these videos.
And so yeah, you can be inmultiple places at once, which,
you know, is, is so, so usefulto be able to meet all the needs
(04:11):
of your students.
And not only that, your studentshave access to you anytime,
anywhere as well.
So like that is, So importantbecause the students who, for
example, are missing class forwho knows what reasons, right?
Like there's millions of reasonswhy students are not able to be
in class, but then they're notbeing disadvantaged because
(04:34):
they've missed that livelecture.
You know, they can get caught upwith a video.
And so there's
Katie (04:39):
a lot of really great features of this and that being
one of them, right?
Like you're not worrying aboutscrambling and trying to reteach
a lesson to somebody to catchthem up while everybody else is
moving forward.
Because everything's alreadymade.
It's available.
It's there.
So now I think maybe is it worthgoing on and talking about some
of the best practices or thingsto consider when creating
Rachel (05:00):
them?
Yeah, I think it is becausewhen, when you're starting out
with videos, like the tool youpick is gonna be the tool that
works for you.
And we'll talk about some ofthose tools later on in this
episode.
But there are key sort of.
Practices and things that youwanna think about as you're
creating your instructionalvideos that are going to apply
(05:21):
no matter what tool you pick.
And I would
Katie (05:24):
say the first one, you as a teacher need to make sure you
have determined your learninggoal.
Before you hit record, you wannakeep it specific and you wanna
really hone in on that goal andtry not to add
Rachel (05:38):
too much.
It's almost like a different wayof thinking about it because you
are so used to maybe planningthose bigger lessons where you
hit on three or four differentkind of key concepts.
In a traditional class period.
Instead, what you really need todo is look at those lessons and
go, okay, how can I chunk thisdown into those smaller key
(06:00):
concepts?
And then make a video for each.
So something that mighttraditionally take you, you
know, a class period and a livelecture of, you know, I don't
know how long, like 30 minutes.
Might be chunked down into fourseparate videos.
Each one focusing just on onetiny piece of that lecture.
(06:20):
Yeah,
Katie (06:20):
exactly.
So it, it's going back to thatlesson that you want to deliver
over a period of however longyou would normally do it, and
breaking it down into very smallpieces.
And then each of those pieceswill be a separate video.
And I think that's probably thefirst step because we always, as
teachers, we're so used to likethe teaching for a long period
(06:42):
of time, you have to abandonthat thought process.
We're not doing that this time.
Rachel (06:47):
Yeah, for sure.
I find it really helpful to goback to my curriculum documents.
So I'll take a look at thecurriculum documents and then
I'll look at what are those keyskills in each of my lessons.
And I have a really nice kind ofGoogle doc that I just throw
them all into and go, okay, whatis the goal?
(07:08):
And it can only be one goal.
Like, I don't wanna create avideo for anything more than one
specific objective.
Agreed.
And so I'll go through and listthem all, and then that gives me
kind of like my hit list of thevideos I need to create then.
And
Katie (07:24):
uh, Rachel's been working with me on my.
English as an additionallanguage and we actually started
doing exactly that and it was sooverwhelming at first to think,
you know, how are these videosgonna come together?
But she's right.
Like we honestly went back tocurriculum.
You could very explicitly seelike those skills that we need
to target and how theyprogressed throughout the
(07:44):
different courses.
And it was kind of amazingbecause, you know, I could now
sit there and say, I get it.
These are my lessons, these aremy videos.
Super
Rachel (07:53):
helpful was a really interesting exercise to do.
Yeah, it was kind
Katie (07:57):
of amazing because you know, you always think in your
head, but like you normally onlyteach one, maybe another level
at the same time, but blowing itup this way.
Yeah.
It's kind of neat to see howthat happens
Rachel (08:09):
now in terms of creating whatever you're going to record,
I would say.
If you're going through andcreating slide decks, if you're
doing a screen share, then youwanna keep it as visual as you
can.
So add lots of images and reallyminimize the amount of text
that's on your slides.
And this kind of goes back tosome neuroscience, neuro
(08:32):
learning kinds of thinking is,you know, you can't actually
process and read.
As you are trying to listen tosomething, so minimizing that
text on your slides is going tohelp your students take in the
information a lot better than ifit was cluttered with words.
Katie (08:52):
Now, word of caution.
Don't just put images for thesake of images.
Like there needs to be a clearconnection.
Any extra images will justdistract from what you're trying
to do.
So it has to be very purposefulin the images that you're
Rachel (09:07):
choosing.
Yeah, for sure.
And it's almost better if, asyou are.
Recording, like maybe it's abase image and then you're
adding and layering onto thatimage.
So you know that works reallywell in a lot of science type
topics, like especially physics.
Physics works really well forthat.
You kind of have like a baseimage and then you start
(09:29):
building in the information andyou're actually annotating on
the slides as you go and you'rerecording it.
And that adds a lot of value.
But you're right.
So.
Don't throw in a gif, you know,just for sake of it being a
funny joke, unless maybe it'srelated to your contents, then I
think you can get away with thata little bit.
(09:50):
Yeah, definitely.
Katie (09:51):
The other thing to consider is how you can make it
interactive, um, because youreally do want kids to engage
with your lesson.
It can't just be a sit and get.
But consider putting in likesome interactive questions
throughout or something thatthey can kind of, you know, work
through as they're
Rachel (10:07):
watching.
Yeah, so there's some greattools, things like EDpuzzle or
now Screencastify.
If you go back and listen toepisode 64, we talk all about
the interactive questions there.
Those are really great tools toadd in those kind of questions.
But I would also take that astep further and I would say
within your video, Plan forplaces where you get your
(10:28):
students to say, pause the videoand try something, or pause the
video, go find someone else andconnect with them around this
topic, and then come back andrestart the video again.
I like those kind of things
Katie (10:41):
too.
You can even have some sort ofclose writing activity where
they're kind of doing it asthey're watching.
That helps some English languagelearners in particular, if
they're lower, kind of in thatstep continuum.
But, um, it's really justanything to get them interacting
with that video and with thecontent that you're, you're
trying to teach them.
Rachel (11:00):
Yeah.
And what I really like aboutthis, now that you mentioned
the.
Note taking is you can actuallythen take your videos and plan
notes for them in different sortof levels of support.
So really differentiating thenotes that go along with the
videos that students are taking.
(11:21):
So you could have it set up, youknow, depending on, on your
class and your students.
Maybe you're getting them tojust take freehand notes and
practicing that kind of skill.
And then you could also haveanother sort of differentiated
set where it's.
Scaffolded a little bit withsome titles and subtitles, but
then they're adding their ownstuff in.
You could then go down and havesentence starters where you know
(11:44):
you're giving them thosesentence starters and they can
start jotting in the words thatcome after.
Or you can go down even furtherand add in the sentence frames.
So doing something more clothes,and you could create a set of
those.
That go along with each of yourinstructional videos.
Yeah, it takes time, but thenyou're truly differentiating and
allowing your students to pick.
(12:06):
The level of support that theyneed as they're working through.
Another consideration
Katie (12:11):
is to provide some guiding questions that they can
read before watching a video.
That way it kind of gets themthinking about key terms or
concepts, and then as they'rewatching, they're kind of, they
know what to listen for.
They know what to watch for,and, and it makes it more.
Of an effective
Rachel (12:28):
watch.
Yeah, a lot of my guided notesthat I started creating sort of
the last year I was in theclassroom and what I would still
continue going forward areactually based on retrieval
practice.
And so I know I've talked aboutthis in like episodes many, many
episodes ago, but what you dois.
(12:48):
You have your students watch acertain piece of the video, you
get them to pause it, and thenI, instead of my notes having
just kind of the titles orsubtitles, they're more question
based.
So it'll say, um, it'll ask thema question and ask them to them,
put it in their own words.
So they're pausing the video atthat point and then writing down
(13:08):
what.
They remember and what they canrecall and retrieve from that
memory of just seeing that piecein the instructional video.
And then they can rewind and goback and and add in the other
stuff.
So they're building in some ofthat retrieval practice as their
note taking too.
Katie (13:25):
Nice.
Uh, and in terms of the actualrecording, make sure it's, you
make sure you insert yourpersonality.
Yes.
Because the whole point of thisis that you're still the teacher
and your personality and who youare is still there.
It's just you're recordingyourself instead of being in
front of
Rachel (13:40):
everybody.
Yeah.
Have fun.
Put in those corny jokes, youknow, I've got, I've got a lot
of good science ones that justtend to come out naturally and
it, yeah, it's a lot of fun whenyou include your own
personality.
I would say go even furtherthough, and it's not the easiest
thing to see your face on video,but show your face.
Yep.
And.
(14:01):
That's not something I startedout with with recording
instructional videos, but as I'mkind of thinking about going
back and recording new videosfor my courses and content going
forward, I would show my faceeven though I don't really want
to.
Yeah, it can be
Katie (14:20):
tough, but it's totally worth it.
Like it, it really does makethat connection.
And for students that do rely onlip reading as well as
listening, I.
You'd be surprised how much moreeffective their understanding
can be if you give them thatextra format
Rachel (14:36):
as you're recording videos, you're, you're doing
usually like hand movements oryou're making facial expressions
or something like that.
So, yeah.
So Katie's making a facialexpression at me right now.
But you, you can't portray thatin just your voice, as we say,
as we're recording a podcast.
Right.
I know, but.
(14:58):
I digress.
Showing your face, it's justthat extra point of connection
for your students.
Yeah, it really does
Katie (15:05):
help and I am like I am known.
You can always tell what I amthinking when you look at my
face.
And my students take advantageof that on a daily basis, but it
helps them.
It guides them.
So yeah, incorporate who you areand incorporate your
Rachel (15:22):
actual face.
One of the other big tips that Ihave is your recording time.
Keeping it short, short, short,short.
So it depends on the age ofstudents that you are recording
videos for.
For secondary students like highschool, nine through 12, even
seven, eight, I would say likebetween six to like nine minutes
(15:44):
is kind of pushing it in termsof an instructional video,
really six around the six minutemark is pretty ideal.
There's a lot of studies outthere that show after 10 minutes
like kids are checking out andthey are no longer engaged in
your video.
Katie (15:59):
I'm going to admit, as a teacher, If you give me an
instructional video that is like10 minutes or more, I'm probably
not really listening all thatwell, and I've moved on to
multitasking and they do saythat teachers make the worst
students, so perhaps.
Perhaps I'm just a bad student.
But yeah.
And Al also consider thestudents you have in your
(16:21):
classroom because not everybodyis going to be a highly academic
student that can sit there forlonger periods of time.
We have such a range, inability,such a range in even like.
Ability to focus for such a longperiod of time.
Like for me, for Englishlanguage learners, I want to
keep it like, I don't want anymore than six minutes.
That's kind of where I'm gonnatap out and say, okay, it's time
(16:44):
to stop.
So how can I make my languagemore concise?
Or, you know, how can I makethis into two videos?
Rachel (16:51):
So, For sure, and I would say any ages, even younger
than that.
Six minutes is even too long.
Like elementary age.
I'd be aiming for three, maybefour minutes at most.
Yeah, totally.
The last sort of tip.
You don't have to include this,but if you do have pieces of
information that are on yourslides, I would highly recommend
(17:15):
that you use animations that arebuilt into whatever slide deck
kind of program you have.
So Google Slides get each bulletpoint to come in and animate and
fade in as you're talking aboutit, rather than showing all the
information in one piece.
So just kind of controlling theflow of information as you go
(17:37):
and as you are creating and, andrecording those instructional
videos can be really helpful.
It helps your students to focuson just what you're talking
about.
Yeah, it's, it's
Katie (17:47):
almost like highlighting like those key features, right?
So you're just, when there's ananimation that brings in a new
term, now they're payingattention again.
It's kind of like that visualcue to help them focus on what's
happening.
I have one more piece of adviceand, and tell me if it works or
not.
Make sure that studentsunderstand where you're going
with it.
(18:08):
So how you package yourinstructional videos into like,
I don't know if you wanna saylike units, concepts.
Something to kind of help.
It makes sense.
So if I'm teaching an essay, youknow, maybe, you know, that's my
overall unit, but I have manylessons in between and they can
kind of see that progression andmy end goal and where I'm going
with it.
(18:28):
So maybe at the beginning of aunit, you're explaining what the
end goal is and then they'regoing through those videos.
It, it just helps keep the wholeprocess transparent for students
and they're not like, well, whatam I gonna do next?
What am I doing next?
Like they can kind of startapplying it to a future goal.
Rachel (18:44):
Right?
Yeah.
That that makes sense.
Okay, so those are tips.
In terms of the actual recordingprocess, what I would say is
after you've kind of consideredall of those different tips, the
first thing you wanna do iscreate any slides or docs or
whatever you're going toscreencast for your video first,
(19:04):
and get that planned out.
Before you hit record.
Katie (19:07):
Yeah.
You wanna make sure you'reready.
You wanna make sure you havethat kind of broken down.
Make sure each slide is going tobe effective and not just there
for the sake of being a slide.
And yeah, get that going.
And work with people like ifyou're co-teaching, make sure it
makes sense to other people too.
Have them take a look at it andgive you feedback.
Mm-hmm.
Rachel (19:25):
Yeah, there's nothing to say.
You can't all in your courseteam create the slide decks that
you're all going to screenrecord.
And then you just go off andrecord your own version of it.
Like why not collaborate onthat?
Because that's gonna save sometime.
Totally.
I would also say that, you know,the more time you, you kind of
spend in this preparation phase,the easier it is that that
(19:49):
recording piece is gonna go asplanned and you're gonna be able
to record it quickly.
Because you are super preparedto record.
When I remember
Katie (19:57):
when I was first creating instructional videos, uh,
whether it be PD or what, Iwould hit record thinking I was
ready.
I'm good.
I have my, my information that Iwanna cover, and then my mind
would go blank.
Consider giving yourself likethe step-by-step.
Here are the fir like thetopics, give topics or keywords
to help kind of guide you asyou're going through the
(20:20):
recording, because otherwise, Itdoes feel weird to record for
the first few times.
And so then you might all, youmight go blank.
You might be like, what was Idoing again?
I think I caught it all.
And then you realize you misssomething and have to do it
again.
So almost like scripted out.
Don't do word for word script,but do like key words cuz you
wanna keep it
Rachel (20:39):
conversational.
Yeah.
So if you're using a tool likeGoogle Slides, you could even
put those in your speaker notes.
And have those key points inthere.
And then when you go to screenrecord, instead of going into
present mode and presenting yourfull screen, if you click the
little dropdown arrow beside thepresent button, it's got a
presenter view and then you canpresent it.
(21:02):
Your slides look nice inpresentation view, but then it
gives you your speaker's notesoff to the side in a separate
window, so then you can takethat separate window, just have
it off to the side and kind oflook at your key points as
you're going
Katie (21:16):
through, and then just set up whatever you're using to
record in such a way that itonly records the tab that you
are doing.
Your presentation in, which Ithink kind of brings us to tools
because there's so much outthere.
We can give you some suggestionsor some tools that we think
would be helpful, but pleasenote that they are just
suggestions.
Every board and district hastheir own list of tools, their
(21:38):
own preferences, et cetera.
So.
Take it with a grain of salt.
Check out the ones if you wantto or just use the ones you're
used to.
Before we talk
Rachel (21:47):
about tools though, really, really quick.
I think we just kind of need togo back to what we said at the
beginning is like we're notgoing for professional.
Mm-hmm.
Crazy kind of production valuewe're going for effective in
terms of delivering theinformation.
So one of my sort of favoritesayings over the past year or so
(22:07):
has been Go for, done notperfect.
Yep.
So, Try and record yourscreencast in one take and just
be okay with any mistakes thatshow up.
You, you don't wanna spend a tonof time in the recording stage
or editing, like, don't evenedit your videos.
No,
Katie (22:25):
you, you really do want to, uh, minimize that and.
To be honest, it's human to makemistakes and I, and I think it's
important that students hear usmake mistakes and correct
ourselves because then they knowit's okay.
It's a culture of we makemistakes, but we correct it and
we move on.
Versus a culture of it has to beperfect because I find with my
(22:46):
English language learners, ifthey get into this culture of
perfection, they're afraid tomake mistakes to the point
where, They don't even wannaspeak.
And that becomes problematicwhen you're trying to learn a
language.
Yes.
Rachel (22:57):
Yeah.
You do need to practice speakingit, for sure.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
I would say I actually have beenin teaching with instructional
videos for many, many years.
I've used them in different waysin my classroom, not always the
same way.
But I have certain videos that Iknow I have mistakes in.
(23:17):
And so they're almost now kindof, uh, like a guiding post in
that if my students are notasking me a question or not
going, isn't that wrong, thenthat's telling me that they're
not actually understanding thematerial.
Nice.
And I just, I've, I've justchosen not to rerecord those
videos because they're actuallyvery telling for me as a teacher
(23:41):
and, and telling me where theirunderstanding is of those
concepts.
So there, there are bonuses formaking mistakes.
Awesome.
Katie (23:49):
Okay.
Tools.
Tools.
So first I would say the toolsyou want to use in terms of your
lesson, it's really gonna dependon what you wanna do.
I like slides, we're, we're aGoogle board.
It, it makes sense to use slidesfor us.
So that's probably what I wouldstart with is slides itself,
depending on the concept.
I
Rachel (24:09):
would start with slides two.
You know, that's, that's sort ofmy go-to is I will have kind of
all that.
Background, like the images orthe text or whatever I want in
my video.
A lot of my slides are actuallyreally, really bare.
Now it's funny because as I'vekind of gone through the years
of teaching, like when I firststarted teaching, my slides were
(24:31):
full of information and now 11years in.
I barely have anything on myslides.
Like if, if it's a chemistryproblem that we're solving, like
it's just the text of theproblem and that's it.
Or if we're talking about someconcept, usually it's a diagram
and that's it.
And then I annotate all over it.
So I'll take slides and I takeit in terms of recording.
(24:53):
I'll bring that into, explaineverything cuz that's kind of
one of my favorite tools forrecording and annotating at the
same time.
I
Katie (25:01):
was going to say like that's a pretty good tool too,
especially if you're gonna dolike problems, math, et cetera.
Those are awesome tools forthose types of
Rachel (25:09):
classes.
But yeah, pretty much any kindof presentation software is
gonna work.
So if you are a Microsoft Board,use PowerPoint, that makes
sense.
If you're on a Mac keynote isgreat.
I have barely used Keynote, butI know that, um, it's, it's a
very effective tool.
You can even do things likePrezi or I've recently been
(25:30):
playing with Geni Lee and that'skind of a fun interactive
presentation tool.
So there, there's lots ofpresentation tools out there
that you can use and I think itkind of depends on what you have
available and what your needsare.
I was
Katie (25:45):
actually going to say there's been a bit of a
resurgence with Prezi,especially cuz it's very
interactive with Zoom and solike there are tools that work
well.
In your video conferencing typeof a, a program, and you, and
you can also record from those,right?
And so some people may choose touse Google Meet to record and
(26:05):
then do some cropping at the endor teams if you can record from
there, which I believe you can.
Or Zoom, right?
Like that can be your videorecording if that's how you want
to do it.
Rachel (26:16):
Yeah, those are all really great tools to record
from and, and record reallyeasily.
I know a lot of people, likethey, at the beginning of the
pandemic, they didn't reallyhave the capacity to learn video
recording like Screencastingtools on top of Google Meet.
And so I know I, I helped a lotof staff at that beginning to
just record their Google meet.
(26:37):
Like share their screen, recordtheir Google Meet.
And so they were only learningone tool, but it served all the
purposes that they needed atthat time.
And
Katie (26:46):
I think that that really does go back to what capacity
you have.
We're not looking for abeautifully produced product at
the end.
We're looking to teach ourstudents something.
And so always go back to thatpurpose because pretty doesn't
mean effective.
That being said, like if you'recomfortable with Screencastify,
Screencast, amatic, any of thesevideo recording tools?
(27:08):
I mean, feel free to use those.
Like, it all depends
Rachel (27:11):
on your comfort level.
There's also Loom, which I kindof like, I haven't used it a
whole lot, but the reason I likeit is because it puts your face
in a circle instead of a square.
Mm-hmm.
And it's just different.
Yeah, it does change it up.
It does.
So that's one.
The other one that I have comeacross recently, and I recorded
(27:31):
a video with this over the pastweek is the Flipgrid shorts.
Oh my goodness.
Okay.
So what Flipgrid Shorts does orwhat you can do in their now, Is
you can choose a virtualbackground and you can choose
your screen as your virtualbackground, and then you can set
your picture down into one ofthe corners, so you're basically
(27:54):
getting a green screen effectand you're, you're actually in
your slides, which is, which isreally cool.
And so it, it.
It looks pretty good.
I mean, the virtual background'snot perfect because I, I kind of
move around when I, when Irecord videos, and so you can
see like the background movingaround behind my head, but it
(28:15):
was, it was a lot of fun.
Katie (28:17):
That does sound really neat.
I like that.
So if, if you can use Flipgrid,then consider that as another
option, right?
It's, it's kind of neat to be.
In your presentation.
Yeah,
Rachel (28:26):
and then they also, I haven't played around with it
too much, but I know that theyhave whiteboarding features, so
you can draw on whatever you'rerecording as well.
So that's kind of like an all inone tool.
Now the caveat with Flipgridshorts is you are limited to 10
minutes.
But really your videos shouldn'tbe any longer than that anyway.
So it's almost like you got thatcountdown timer, and it does, it
(28:49):
has a little timer as you'rerecording, that counts down.
So it's forcing you to staywithin those kind of bumpers
that you're defining foryourself.
Katie (28:59):
And I think one piece of advice I have while you are
recording, learn the keyboardshortcuts.
So if you are able to pause arecording because you realize
you kind of forget what you'resupposed to say next, or you
just need to take a breathbecause you're feeling
overwhelmed, knowing thoseshortcuts, you can then do that.
It's perfect.
And then, you know, hit recordagain when you're ready to hit
(29:21):
record
Rachel (29:21):
again.
And I think that's why I kind ofreally love, and I keep going
back to explain everything.
So I will record on my iPad.
And what I really, really loveabout that is you can record it
slide by slide, so you don'thave to like, you can hit record
and just flip through yourslides, but you can also just
record one slide and then moveon to the next.
(29:42):
Record the next one, and recordthe next one.
And so, That's really nice interms of, uh, staying organized
as you're recording.
The other advice though I haveis if you're gonna record on
something like your iPad andyou're using an Apple pencil,
that can get really noisy.
I don't know if you, have youever tried that, Katie?
(30:03):
I've used
Katie (30:04):
the Apple pencil to like explain things in Google Meet
and whatnot, but I haven't donelike an actual, like, lesson
recording, but I can you hearall the
Rachel (30:12):
taps?
Yes.
So if you're just using thebuilt-in microphone on your
iPad, then you will hear all thetap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap,
tap.
Right?
Yeah.
So, What I do instead, and thisworks with most iPads, as long
as you have the right adapters.
If you have an externalmicrophone, you can plug that in
(30:32):
and it will pick up yourexternal microphone.
Or if you have an oldergeneration iPad or have one with
a headphone jack, just evenusing the headphones.
That come with an Apple iPhone,for example, like something with
the built-in mic on yourheadphones itself, it's going to
sound so much better.
(30:54):
And you know, it doesn't totallyget rid of that tap, tap, tap
necessarily, but it gets rid ofmost of it.
Nice.
Yeah, I never would've thoughtof that good call as a a math
science person who loves toannotate on the screen and like,
Absolutely has to annotate onthe screen for an instructional
video y You learn a lot of thatstuff over the years.
Katie (31:17):
That's awesome.
So another tool that Rachel hasused far more is O B s.
As, as what a tool that you canuse for recording.
Mm-hmm.
Rachel (31:26):
Yeah.
And that's kind of taking it tothe next level.
So, you know, if you're, ifyou're not so comfortable with
video production and don't kindof wanna go through that
learning curve, I would saythat's not a tool that you want
to go with.
The reason I like it.
Okay.
And, I don't know.
Okay.
I, I should tell you the story,right on A couple days ago, I
(31:49):
was trying to record a video andI wanted to place myself in the
slide.
So I kind of wanted to use, Ihave a green screen, so I wanted
to do the green screen effectand like make it look a little
bit more professional cuz it'ssomething that I'm creating to
share out with our board.
Okay, so like there's, there's alittle bit more weight behind
the kinds of videos that I'mmaking this year, and I got my
(32:12):
green screen out.
I put it up, got o bs, open.
All of that works well, but I, Idon't post a lot of myself, uh,
pictures of myself on socialmedia, but I have very, very,
very pale skin.
And so when I had the greenscreen and I pulled the green
screen effect out, half of myface disappeared too.
(32:34):
Oh no.
I know, right?
Oh man.
It was awful.
And so I played with lighting, Iplayed with placement of my
green screen.
I played with everything.
It just wasn't working.
And so that's when I kind ofwent on the hunt for a different
tool to use because O Bs wasn'tmeeting my needs.
And so I.
Then I came across FlipgridShorts and I feel like I'm, I'm
(32:57):
very late to the Flipgrid shortsgame.
But that met my needs.
Exactly.
I was able to place myself inthere.
I didn't have to use my greenscreen.
It wasn't washing out my face.
And so it was perfect.
That, and that, that kind
Katie (33:11):
of goes with what we're always saying, right?
Like, find one that fits yourpurpose.
Don't feel like you have to makea tool fit.
What you're doing.
There's lots
Rachel (33:18):
of tools out there.
Now, the reason I like o Bs isbecause you can pull in multiple
things on your, they call themscenes.
So you could bring in your slidedeck and maybe have it in one
sort of area.
You could have, say a Jamboardopen for annotating in another
area.
You could have your webcam onthere.
You can do green screen stufflike you can.
(33:39):
You can do a lot with O Bs.
Like it is super powerful, butit does come with a learning
curve.
Katie (33:45):
No, totally.
And so disclaimer, I won't beusing it for this round of
videos.
You really do need to have thetime to be and capacity to be
able to, so give yourself somegrace, allow yourself a bit of
freedom to kind of just.
Bare bones video record and makeit work.
Rachel (34:05):
I think some of the final tools we can mention just
quickly is stuff that's builtinto the system you're using
already.
So Katie and I are both Macusers, QuickTime Player is built
in and.
That's actually a pretty decentrecorder.
I can, if I wanna plug in myiPad into my MacBook, I can
(34:26):
actually record my iPad screenfrom there.
So if I wanna like demo me goingfrom app to app and like doing
different things in the appsthat makes sense for me to
record a video.
Yeah, I'm sure Windows or PC hassomething built too.
I'm not so familiar with itthough.
No, nor am
Katie (34:43):
I.
I always use my Mac.
Rachel (34:45):
So we apologize to any PC users out there.
Yeah, I, I think that kind ofwraps it up.
We could talk more aboutenhancing those videos and talk
about EDpuzzle and Nearpod andall that kind of good stuff.
I feel like that is for anotherday though, so we'll leave that
for now.
That's just how to.
(35:07):
Create your videos plan forthem, why you wanna do videos in
the first place, and how torecord them and what kind of
tools you have available.
Yeah.
So
Katie (35:16):
perhaps we, um, de de we'll dedicate an episode to,
you know, once you record yourvideo, what can you do with it
and how can you make it moreinteractive?
Rachel (35:24):
So what we'll do is we'll include any of the
resources or links we talkedabout here today in our show
notes, and you can access ourshow notes for this
episode@edugals.com slash 67.
That's edu g a ls.com/ 67.
And if you like what you heard,
Katie (35:41):
feel free to share it with a colleague or a friend.
And don't forget to subscribe onyour favorite podcast app so
that you don't miss out on anyfuture
Rachel (35:49):
content.
And if you have any tips ordifferent ideas around creating
effective instructional videos,So stuff that works for you that
we haven't talked about heretoday, we would love to hear
what you are doing.
So you can go onto our Flipgridat edu gals.com/flipgrid and
leave us a video message there.
(36:11):
Or you can go onto ourwebsite@edgeedugals.com and
leave us a written reply.
Thanks for
Katie (36:16):
listening and see you next week.
Thanks for listening to thisepisode of our edu Gals podcast.
Show notes for this episode areavailable@edugals.com.
That's edu.
G A l s.com.
(36:37):
We'd also love to hear yourfeedback, so leave us a message
on our website,
Rachel (36:42):
and if you enjoyed what you heard, please subscribe and
consider leaving a rating orreview on your favorite podcast
app.
Until next time, keep beingawesome and try something new.
Welcome to the Edge U Gals podcast.
We are your co-host RachelJohnson and
Katie (00:31):
Katie Atwell.
We are here to bring you tipsand tricks to help you integrate
technology into your classroom.
Rachel (00:40):
In this episode, we are talking all about how to create
effective instructional videosfor your classroom.
We're going to tell
Katie (00:48):
you why this is important, and then we're also
going to share some tips as wellas some tools that you can use
when creating your
Rachel (00:55):
videos.
Let's get started.
This week, Katie and I are backand we're talking all about
creating effective instructionalvideos today.
So we're kind of going down thispath of mastery based learning
(01:15):
in our last couple of episodes.
And so we thought that we oughtto talk about creating
instructional videos becausereally, I.
That provides you with thestructure and flexibility to be
able to do mastery based gradingin your classroom in the first
place.
Katie (01:31):
Yeah.
So we'll kind of go over thewhy, obviously we'll start with
that, um, and then we'll talkabout some best practices and
whatnot.
I, I do find that like this, It,it's really important to know
how to make good videos becauseif your videos aren't good, then
the mastery based isn't going tobe good, if that makes sense.
Like kids aren't going to engageif the videos are absolutely
(01:53):
terrible and too overwhelming,or whatever the case may be.
So I think that it's reallyimportant to, to make sure that
you can do, you know, theseshort effective videos to help
Rachel (02:04):
make this possible.
Yeah, and let's preface this alittle bit so that, you know, we
don't get people checking outright away at the beginning of
our episode, but we are nottalking about high quality, no
professional level productionvideos.
We are not talking about that.
We are talking about creatingthose videos that you can use
that are not going to take you aton of time.
(02:27):
And so we don't want youthinking that we want you to
create these.
You know, green screen effect,like all this like crazy stuff
cuz that is not what we aretalking about today.
It's just how to kind ofstructure your slide decks if
you're using slide decks foryour videos and, and how to
think about putting together andchunking out content.
(02:48):
So it's.
Easy and digestible for yourstudents?
Yes.
Let's
Katie (02:52):
be clear, we don't need to be movie producers here.
That's not what we're looking todo, but there's still a fine
line as to like what to include,what not to include, how long,
like I'm talking about you wantstudents to watch.
You don't want them to watch andthen kind of stop watching and
learning.
(03:12):
You kind there.
There is a happy medium in termsof how you create these
Rachel (03:17):
videos.
So let's talk about why, why wewanna create instructional
videos in the first place.
So for me
Katie (03:23):
it's, well, the why is the learning so, In a mastery
based classroom, the learning isgoing to be through these
instructional videos for themost part.
Um, I will have small grouptargeted instruction based on,
you know, the needs of thestudents, and perhaps I need to
present it in a different way,et cetera.
But you know, for the most part,these students will be learning
(03:43):
at their own pace and masteringthese skills through the use of
these.
Short instructional videos
Rachel (03:49):
and to take that a little bit further, I sort of
see this as I'm creating a cloneof myself in, in my classroom so
I can be helping other studentswhile my students are learning
from these videos.
And so yeah, you can be inmultiple places at once, which,
you know, is, is so, so usefulto be able to meet all the needs
(04:11):
of your students.
And not only that, your studentshave access to you anytime,
anywhere as well.
So like that is, So importantbecause the students who, for
example, are missing class forwho knows what reasons, right?
Like there's millions of reasonswhy students are not able to be
in class, but then they're notbeing disadvantaged because
(04:34):
they've missed that livelecture.
You know, they can get caught upwith a video.
And so there's
Katie (04:39):
a lot of really great features of this and that being
one of them, right?
Like you're not worrying aboutscrambling and trying to reteach
a lesson to somebody to catchthem up while everybody else is
moving forward.
Because everything's alreadymade.
It's available.
It's there.
So now I think maybe is it worthgoing on and talking about some
of the best practices or thingsto consider when creating
Rachel (05:00):
them?
Yeah, I think it is becausewhen, when you're starting out
with videos, like the tool youpick is gonna be the tool that
works for you.
And we'll talk about some ofthose tools later on in this
episode.
But there are key sort of.
Practices and things that youwanna think about as you're
creating your instructionalvideos that are going to apply
(05:21):
no matter what tool you pick.
And I would
Katie (05:24):
say the first one, you as a teacher need to make sure you
have determined your learninggoal.
Before you hit record, you wannakeep it specific and you wanna
really hone in on that goal andtry not to add
Rachel (05:38):
too much.
It's almost like a different wayof thinking about it because you
are so used to maybe planningthose bigger lessons where you
hit on three or four differentkind of key concepts.
In a traditional class period.
Instead, what you really need todo is look at those lessons and
go, okay, how can I chunk thisdown into those smaller key
(06:00):
concepts?
And then make a video for each.
So something that mighttraditionally take you, you
know, a class period and a livelecture of, you know, I don't
know how long, like 30 minutes.
Might be chunked down into fourseparate videos.
Each one focusing just on onetiny piece of that lecture.
(06:20):
Yeah,
Katie (06:20):
exactly.
So it, it's going back to thatlesson that you want to deliver
over a period of however longyou would normally do it, and
breaking it down into very smallpieces.
And then each of those pieceswill be a separate video.
And I think that's probably thefirst step because we always, as
teachers, we're so used to likethe teaching for a long period
(06:42):
of time, you have to abandonthat thought process.
We're not doing that this time.
Rachel (06:47):
Yeah, for sure.
I find it really helpful to goback to my curriculum documents.
So I'll take a look at thecurriculum documents and then
I'll look at what are those keyskills in each of my lessons.
And I have a really nice kind ofGoogle doc that I just throw
them all into and go, okay, whatis the goal?
(07:08):
And it can only be one goal.
Like, I don't wanna create avideo for anything more than one
specific objective.
Agreed.
And so I'll go through and listthem all, and then that gives me
kind of like my hit list of thevideos I need to create then.
And
Katie (07:24):
uh, Rachel's been working with me on my.
English as an additionallanguage and we actually started
doing exactly that and it was sooverwhelming at first to think,
you know, how are these videosgonna come together?
But she's right.
Like we honestly went back tocurriculum.
You could very explicitly seelike those skills that we need
to target and how theyprogressed throughout the
(07:44):
different courses.
And it was kind of amazingbecause, you know, I could now
sit there and say, I get it.
These are my lessons, these aremy videos.
Super
Rachel (07:53):
helpful was a really interesting exercise to do.
Yeah, it was kind
Katie (07:57):
of amazing because you know, you always think in your
head, but like you normally onlyteach one, maybe another level
at the same time, but blowing itup this way.
Yeah.
It's kind of neat to see howthat happens
Rachel (08:09):
now in terms of creating whatever you're going to record,
I would say.
If you're going through andcreating slide decks, if you're
doing a screen share, then youwanna keep it as visual as you
can.
So add lots of images and reallyminimize the amount of text
that's on your slides.
And this kind of goes back tosome neuroscience, neuro
(08:32):
learning kinds of thinking is,you know, you can't actually
process and read.
As you are trying to listen tosomething, so minimizing that
text on your slides is going tohelp your students take in the
information a lot better than ifit was cluttered with words.
Katie (08:52):
Now, word of caution.
Don't just put images for thesake of images.
Like there needs to be a clearconnection.
Any extra images will justdistract from what you're trying
to do.
So it has to be very purposefulin the images that you're
Rachel (09:07):
choosing.
Yeah, for sure.
And it's almost better if, asyou are.
Recording, like maybe it's abase image and then you're
adding and layering onto thatimage.
So you know that works reallywell in a lot of science type
topics, like especially physics.
Physics works really well forthat.
You kind of have like a baseimage and then you start
(09:29):
building in the information andyou're actually annotating on
the slides as you go and you'rerecording it.
And that adds a lot of value.
But you're right.
So.
Don't throw in a gif, you know,just for sake of it being a
funny joke, unless maybe it'srelated to your contents, then I
think you can get away with thata little bit.
(09:50):
Yeah, definitely.
Katie (09:51):
The other thing to consider is how you can make it
interactive, um, because youreally do want kids to engage
with your lesson.
It can't just be a sit and get.
But consider putting in likesome interactive questions
throughout or something thatthey can kind of, you know, work
through as they're
Rachel (10:07):
watching.
Yeah, so there's some greattools, things like EDpuzzle or
now Screencastify.
If you go back and listen toepisode 64, we talk all about
the interactive questions there.
Those are really great tools toadd in those kind of questions.
But I would also take that astep further and I would say
within your video, Plan forplaces where you get your
(10:28):
students to say, pause the videoand try something, or pause the
video, go find someone else andconnect with them around this
topic, and then come back andrestart the video again.
I like those kind of things
Katie (10:41):
too.
You can even have some sort ofclose writing activity where
they're kind of doing it asthey're watching.
That helps some English languagelearners in particular, if
they're lower, kind of in thatstep continuum.
But, um, it's really justanything to get them interacting
with that video and with thecontent that you're, you're
trying to teach them.
Rachel (11:00):
Yeah.
And what I really like aboutthis, now that you mentioned
the.
Note taking is you can actuallythen take your videos and plan
notes for them in different sortof levels of support.
So really differentiating thenotes that go along with the
videos that students are taking.
(11:21):
So you could have it set up, youknow, depending on, on your
class and your students.
Maybe you're getting them tojust take freehand notes and
practicing that kind of skill.
And then you could also haveanother sort of differentiated
set where it's.
Scaffolded a little bit withsome titles and subtitles, but
then they're adding their ownstuff in.
You could then go down and havesentence starters where you know
(11:44):
you're giving them thosesentence starters and they can
start jotting in the words thatcome after.
Or you can go down even furtherand add in the sentence frames.
So doing something more clothes,and you could create a set of
those.
That go along with each of yourinstructional videos.
Yeah, it takes time, but thenyou're truly differentiating and
allowing your students to pick.
(12:06):
The level of support that theyneed as they're working through.
Another consideration
Katie (12:11):
is to provide some guiding questions that they can
read before watching a video.
That way it kind of gets themthinking about key terms or
concepts, and then as they'rewatching, they're kind of, they
know what to listen for.
They know what to watch for,and, and it makes it more.
Of an effective
Rachel (12:28):
watch.
Yeah, a lot of my guided notesthat I started creating sort of
the last year I was in theclassroom and what I would still
continue going forward areactually based on retrieval
practice.
And so I know I've talked aboutthis in like episodes many, many
episodes ago, but what you dois.
(12:48):
You have your students watch acertain piece of the video, you
get them to pause it, and thenI, instead of my notes having
just kind of the titles orsubtitles, they're more question
based.
So it'll say, um, it'll ask thema question and ask them to them,
put it in their own words.
So they're pausing the video atthat point and then writing down
(13:08):
what.
They remember and what they canrecall and retrieve from that
memory of just seeing that piecein the instructional video.
And then they can rewind and goback and and add in the other
stuff.
So they're building in some ofthat retrieval practice as their
note taking too.
Katie (13:25):
Nice.
Uh, and in terms of the actualrecording, make sure it's, you
make sure you insert yourpersonality.
Yes.
Because the whole point of thisis that you're still the teacher
and your personality and who youare is still there.
It's just you're recordingyourself instead of being in
front of
Rachel (13:40):
everybody.
Yeah.
Have fun.
Put in those corny jokes, youknow, I've got, I've got a lot
of good science ones that justtend to come out naturally and
it, yeah, it's a lot of fun whenyou include your own
personality.
I would say go even furtherthough, and it's not the easiest
thing to see your face on video,but show your face.
Yep.
And.
(14:01):
That's not something I startedout with with recording
instructional videos, but as I'mkind of thinking about going
back and recording new videosfor my courses and content going
forward, I would show my faceeven though I don't really want
to.
Yeah, it can be
Katie (14:20):
tough, but it's totally worth it.
Like it, it really does makethat connection.
And for students that do rely onlip reading as well as
listening, I.
You'd be surprised how much moreeffective their understanding
can be if you give them thatextra format
Rachel (14:36):
as you're recording videos, you're, you're doing
usually like hand movements oryou're making facial expressions
or something like that.
So, yeah.
So Katie's making a facialexpression at me right now.
But you, you can't portray thatin just your voice, as we say,
as we're recording a podcast.
Right.
I know, but.
(14:58):
I digress.
Showing your face, it's justthat extra point of connection
for your students.
Yeah, it really does
Katie (15:05):
help and I am like I am known.
You can always tell what I amthinking when you look at my
face.
And my students take advantageof that on a daily basis, but it
helps them.
It guides them.
So yeah, incorporate who you areand incorporate your
Rachel (15:22):
actual face.
One of the other big tips that Ihave is your recording time.
Keeping it short, short, short,short.
So it depends on the age ofstudents that you are recording
videos for.
For secondary students like highschool, nine through 12, even
seven, eight, I would say likebetween six to like nine minutes
(15:44):
is kind of pushing it in termsof an instructional video,
really six around the six minutemark is pretty ideal.
There's a lot of studies outthere that show after 10 minutes
like kids are checking out andthey are no longer engaged in
your video.
Katie (15:59):
I'm going to admit, as a teacher, If you give me an
instructional video that is like10 minutes or more, I'm probably
not really listening all thatwell, and I've moved on to
multitasking and they do saythat teachers make the worst
students, so perhaps.
Perhaps I'm just a bad student.
But yeah.
And Al also consider thestudents you have in your
(16:21):
classroom because not everybodyis going to be a highly academic
student that can sit there forlonger periods of time.
We have such a range, inability,such a range in even like.
Ability to focus for such a longperiod of time.
Like for me, for Englishlanguage learners, I want to
keep it like, I don't want anymore than six minutes.
That's kind of where I'm gonnatap out and say, okay, it's time
(16:44):
to stop.
So how can I make my languagemore concise?
Or, you know, how can I makethis into two videos?
Rachel (16:51):
So, For sure, and I would say any ages, even younger
than that.
Six minutes is even too long.
Like elementary age.
I'd be aiming for three, maybefour minutes at most.
Yeah, totally.
The last sort of tip.
You don't have to include this,but if you do have pieces of
information that are on yourslides, I would highly recommend
(17:15):
that you use animations that arebuilt into whatever slide deck
kind of program you have.
So Google Slides get each bulletpoint to come in and animate and
fade in as you're talking aboutit, rather than showing all the
information in one piece.
So just kind of controlling theflow of information as you go
(17:37):
and as you are creating and, andrecording those instructional
videos can be really helpful.
It helps your students to focuson just what you're talking
about.
Yeah, it's, it's
Katie (17:47):
almost like highlighting like those key features, right?
So you're just, when there's ananimation that brings in a new
term, now they're payingattention again.
It's kind of like that visualcue to help them focus on what's
happening.
I have one more piece of adviceand, and tell me if it works or
not.
Make sure that studentsunderstand where you're going
with it.
(18:08):
So how you package yourinstructional videos into like,
I don't know if you wanna saylike units, concepts.
Something to kind of help.
It makes sense.
So if I'm teaching an essay, youknow, maybe, you know, that's my
overall unit, but I have manylessons in between and they can
kind of see that progression andmy end goal and where I'm going
with it.
(18:28):
So maybe at the beginning of aunit, you're explaining what the
end goal is and then they'regoing through those videos.
It, it just helps keep the wholeprocess transparent for students
and they're not like, well, whatam I gonna do next?
What am I doing next?
Like they can kind of startapplying it to a future goal.
Rachel (18:44):
Right?
Yeah.
That that makes sense.
Okay, so those are tips.
In terms of the actual recordingprocess, what I would say is
after you've kind of consideredall of those different tips, the
first thing you wanna do iscreate any slides or docs or
whatever you're going toscreencast for your video first,
(19:04):
and get that planned out.
Before you hit record.
Katie (19:07):
Yeah.
You wanna make sure you'reready.
You wanna make sure you havethat kind of broken down.
Make sure each slide is going tobe effective and not just there
for the sake of being a slide.
And yeah, get that going.
And work with people like ifyou're co-teaching, make sure it
makes sense to other people too.
Have them take a look at it andgive you feedback.
Mm-hmm.
Rachel (19:25):
Yeah, there's nothing to say.
You can't all in your courseteam create the slide decks that
you're all going to screenrecord.
And then you just go off andrecord your own version of it.
Like why not collaborate onthat?
Because that's gonna save sometime.
Totally.
I would also say that, you know,the more time you, you kind of
spend in this preparation phase,the easier it is that that
(19:49):
recording piece is gonna go asplanned and you're gonna be able
to record it quickly.
Because you are super preparedto record.
When I remember
Katie (19:57):
when I was first creating instructional videos, uh,
whether it be PD or what, Iwould hit record thinking I was
ready.
I'm good.
I have my, my information that Iwanna cover, and then my mind
would go blank.
Consider giving yourself likethe step-by-step.
Here are the fir like thetopics, give topics or keywords
to help kind of guide you asyou're going through the
(20:20):
recording, because otherwise, Itdoes feel weird to record for
the first few times.
And so then you might all, youmight go blank.
You might be like, what was Idoing again?
I think I caught it all.
And then you realize you misssomething and have to do it
again.
So almost like scripted out.
Don't do word for word script,but do like key words cuz you
wanna keep it
Rachel (20:39):
conversational.
Yeah.
So if you're using a tool likeGoogle Slides, you could even
put those in your speaker notes.
And have those key points inthere.
And then when you go to screenrecord, instead of going into
present mode and presenting yourfull screen, if you click the
little dropdown arrow beside thepresent button, it's got a
presenter view and then you canpresent it.
(21:02):
Your slides look nice inpresentation view, but then it
gives you your speaker's notesoff to the side in a separate
window, so then you can takethat separate window, just have
it off to the side and kind oflook at your key points as
you're going
Katie (21:16):
through, and then just set up whatever you're using to
record in such a way that itonly records the tab that you
are doing.
Your presentation in, which Ithink kind of brings us to tools
because there's so much outthere.
We can give you some suggestionsor some tools that we think
would be helpful, but pleasenote that they are just
suggestions.
Every board and district hastheir own list of tools, their
(21:38):
own preferences, et cetera.
So.
Take it with a grain of salt.
Check out the ones if you wantto or just use the ones you're
used to.
Before we talk
Rachel (21:47):
about tools though, really, really quick.
I think we just kind of need togo back to what we said at the
beginning is like we're notgoing for professional.
Mm-hmm.
Crazy kind of production valuewe're going for effective in
terms of delivering theinformation.
So one of my sort of favoritesayings over the past year or so
(22:07):
has been Go for, done notperfect.
Yep.
So, Try and record yourscreencast in one take and just
be okay with any mistakes thatshow up.
You, you don't wanna spend a tonof time in the recording stage
or editing, like, don't evenedit your videos.
No,
Katie (22:25):
you, you really do want to, uh, minimize that and.
To be honest, it's human to makemistakes and I, and I think it's
important that students hear usmake mistakes and correct
ourselves because then they knowit's okay.
It's a culture of we makemistakes, but we correct it and
we move on.
Versus a culture of it has to beperfect because I find with my
(22:46):
English language learners, ifthey get into this culture of
perfection, they're afraid tomake mistakes to the point
where, They don't even wannaspeak.
And that becomes problematicwhen you're trying to learn a
language.
Yes.
Rachel (22:57):
Yeah.
You do need to practice speakingit, for sure.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
I would say I actually have beenin teaching with instructional
videos for many, many years.
I've used them in different waysin my classroom, not always the
same way.
But I have certain videos that Iknow I have mistakes in.
(23:17):
And so they're almost now kindof, uh, like a guiding post in
that if my students are notasking me a question or not
going, isn't that wrong, thenthat's telling me that they're
not actually understanding thematerial.
Nice.
And I just, I've, I've justchosen not to rerecord those
videos because they're actuallyvery telling for me as a teacher
(23:41):
and, and telling me where theirunderstanding is of those
concepts.
So there, there are bonuses formaking mistakes.
Awesome.
Katie (23:49):
Okay.
Tools.
Tools.
So first I would say the toolsyou want to use in terms of your
lesson, it's really gonna dependon what you wanna do.
I like slides, we're, we're aGoogle board.
It, it makes sense to use slidesfor us.
So that's probably what I wouldstart with is slides itself,
depending on the concept.
I
Rachel (24:09):
would start with slides two.
You know, that's, that's sort ofmy go-to is I will have kind of
all that.
Background, like the images orthe text or whatever I want in
my video.
A lot of my slides are actuallyreally, really bare.
Now it's funny because as I'vekind of gone through the years
of teaching, like when I firststarted teaching, my slides were
(24:31):
full of information and now 11years in.
I barely have anything on myslides.
Like if, if it's a chemistryproblem that we're solving, like
it's just the text of theproblem and that's it.
Or if we're talking about someconcept, usually it's a diagram
and that's it.
And then I annotate all over it.
So I'll take slides and I takeit in terms of recording.
(24:53):
I'll bring that into, explaineverything cuz that's kind of
one of my favorite tools forrecording and annotating at the
same time.
I
Katie (25:01):
was going to say like that's a pretty good tool too,
especially if you're gonna dolike problems, math, et cetera.
Those are awesome tools forthose types of
Rachel (25:09):
classes.
But yeah, pretty much any kindof presentation software is
gonna work.
So if you are a Microsoft Board,use PowerPoint, that makes
sense.
If you're on a Mac keynote isgreat.
I have barely used Keynote, butI know that, um, it's, it's a
very effective tool.
You can even do things likePrezi or I've recently been
(25:30):
playing with Geni Lee and that'skind of a fun interactive
presentation tool.
So there, there's lots ofpresentation tools out there
that you can use and I think itkind of depends on what you have
available and what your needsare.
I was
Katie (25:45):
actually going to say there's been a bit of a
resurgence with Prezi,especially cuz it's very
interactive with Zoom and solike there are tools that work
well.
In your video conferencing typeof a, a program, and you, and
you can also record from those,right?
And so some people may choose touse Google Meet to record and
(26:05):
then do some cropping at the endor teams if you can record from
there, which I believe you can.
Or Zoom, right?
Like that can be your videorecording if that's how you want
to do it.
Rachel (26:16):
Yeah, those are all really great tools to record
from and, and record reallyeasily.
I know a lot of people, likethey, at the beginning of the
pandemic, they didn't reallyhave the capacity to learn video
recording like Screencastingtools on top of Google Meet.
And so I know I, I helped a lotof staff at that beginning to
just record their Google meet.
(26:37):
Like share their screen, recordtheir Google Meet.
And so they were only learningone tool, but it served all the
purposes that they needed atthat time.
And
Katie (26:46):
I think that that really does go back to what capacity
you have.
We're not looking for abeautifully produced product at
the end.
We're looking to teach ourstudents something.
And so always go back to thatpurpose because pretty doesn't
mean effective.
That being said, like if you'recomfortable with Screencastify,
Screencast, amatic, any of thesevideo recording tools?
(27:08):
I mean, feel free to use those.
Like, it all depends
Rachel (27:11):
on your comfort level.
There's also Loom, which I kindof like, I haven't used it a
whole lot, but the reason I likeit is because it puts your face
in a circle instead of a square.
Mm-hmm.
And it's just different.
Yeah, it does change it up.
It does.
So that's one.
The other one that I have comeacross recently, and I recorded
(27:31):
a video with this over the pastweek is the Flipgrid shorts.
Oh my goodness.
Okay.
So what Flipgrid Shorts does orwhat you can do in their now, Is
you can choose a virtualbackground and you can choose
your screen as your virtualbackground, and then you can set
your picture down into one ofthe corners, so you're basically
(27:54):
getting a green screen effectand you're, you're actually in
your slides, which is, which isreally cool.
And so it, it.
It looks pretty good.
I mean, the virtual background'snot perfect because I, I kind of
move around when I, when Irecord videos, and so you can
see like the background movingaround behind my head, but it
(28:15):
was, it was a lot of fun.
Katie (28:17):
That does sound really neat.
I like that.
So if, if you can use Flipgrid,then consider that as another
option, right?
It's, it's kind of neat to be.
In your presentation.
Yeah,
Rachel (28:26):
and then they also, I haven't played around with it
too much, but I know that theyhave whiteboarding features, so
you can draw on whatever you'rerecording as well.
So that's kind of like an all inone tool.
Now the caveat with Flipgridshorts is you are limited to 10
minutes.
But really your videos shouldn'tbe any longer than that anyway.
So it's almost like you got thatcountdown timer, and it does, it
(28:49):
has a little timer as you'rerecording, that counts down.
So it's forcing you to staywithin those kind of bumpers
that you're defining foryourself.
Katie (28:59):
And I think one piece of advice I have while you are
recording, learn the keyboardshortcuts.
So if you are able to pause arecording because you realize
you kind of forget what you'resupposed to say next, or you
just need to take a breathbecause you're feeling
overwhelmed, knowing thoseshortcuts, you can then do that.
It's perfect.
And then, you know, hit recordagain when you're ready to hit
(29:21):
record
Rachel (29:21):
again.
And I think that's why I kind ofreally love, and I keep going
back to explain everything.
So I will record on my iPad.
And what I really, really loveabout that is you can record it
slide by slide, so you don'thave to like, you can hit record
and just flip through yourslides, but you can also just
record one slide and then moveon to the next.
(29:42):
Record the next one, and recordthe next one.
And so, That's really nice interms of, uh, staying organized
as you're recording.
The other advice though I haveis if you're gonna record on
something like your iPad andyou're using an Apple pencil,
that can get really noisy.
I don't know if you, have youever tried that, Katie?
(30:03):
I've used
Katie (30:04):
the Apple pencil to like explain things in Google Meet
and whatnot, but I haven't donelike an actual, like, lesson
recording, but I can you hearall the
Rachel (30:12):
taps?
Yes.
So if you're just using thebuilt-in microphone on your
iPad, then you will hear all thetap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap,
tap.
Right?
Yeah.
So, What I do instead, and thisworks with most iPads, as long
as you have the right adapters.
If you have an externalmicrophone, you can plug that in
(30:32):
and it will pick up yourexternal microphone.
Or if you have an oldergeneration iPad or have one with
a headphone jack, just evenusing the headphones.
That come with an Apple iPhone,for example, like something with
the built-in mic on yourheadphones itself, it's going to
sound so much better.
(30:54):
And you know, it doesn't totallyget rid of that tap, tap, tap
necessarily, but it gets rid ofmost of it.
Nice.
Yeah, I never would've thoughtof that good call as a a math
science person who loves toannotate on the screen and like,
Absolutely has to annotate onthe screen for an instructional
video y You learn a lot of thatstuff over the years.
Katie (31:17):
That's awesome.
So another tool that Rachel hasused far more is O B s.
As, as what a tool that you canuse for recording.
Mm-hmm.
Rachel (31:26):
Yeah.
And that's kind of taking it tothe next level.
So, you know, if you're, ifyou're not so comfortable with
video production and don't kindof wanna go through that
learning curve, I would saythat's not a tool that you want
to go with.
The reason I like it.
Okay.
And, I don't know.
Okay.
I, I should tell you the story,right on A couple days ago, I
(31:49):
was trying to record a video andI wanted to place myself in the
slide.
So I kind of wanted to use, Ihave a green screen, so I wanted
to do the green screen effectand like make it look a little
bit more professional cuz it'ssomething that I'm creating to
share out with our board.
Okay, so like there's, there's alittle bit more weight behind
the kinds of videos that I'mmaking this year, and I got my
(32:12):
green screen out.
I put it up, got o bs, open.
All of that works well, but I, Idon't post a lot of myself, uh,
pictures of myself on socialmedia, but I have very, very,
very pale skin.
And so when I had the greenscreen and I pulled the green
screen effect out, half of myface disappeared too.
(32:34):
Oh no.
I know, right?
Oh man.
It was awful.
And so I played with lighting, Iplayed with placement of my
green screen.
I played with everything.
It just wasn't working.
And so that's when I kind ofwent on the hunt for a different
tool to use because O Bs wasn'tmeeting my needs.
And so I.
Then I came across FlipgridShorts and I feel like I'm, I'm
(32:57):
very late to the Flipgrid shortsgame.
But that met my needs.
Exactly.
I was able to place myself inthere.
I didn't have to use my greenscreen.
It wasn't washing out my face.
And so it was perfect.
That, and that, that kind
Katie (33:11):
of goes with what we're always saying, right?
Like, find one that fits yourpurpose.
Don't feel like you have to makea tool fit.
What you're doing.
There's lots
Rachel (33:18):
of tools out there.
Now, the reason I like o Bs isbecause you can pull in multiple
things on your, they call themscenes.
So you could bring in your slidedeck and maybe have it in one
sort of area.
You could have, say a Jamboardopen for annotating in another
area.
You could have your webcam onthere.
You can do green screen stufflike you can.
(33:39):
You can do a lot with O Bs.
Like it is super powerful, butit does come with a learning
curve.
Katie (33:45):
No, totally.
And so disclaimer, I won't beusing it for this round of
videos.
You really do need to have thetime to be and capacity to be
able to, so give yourself somegrace, allow yourself a bit of
freedom to kind of just.
Bare bones video record and makeit work.
Rachel (34:05):
I think some of the final tools we can mention just
quickly is stuff that's builtinto the system you're using
already.
So Katie and I are both Macusers, QuickTime Player is built
in and.
That's actually a pretty decentrecorder.
I can, if I wanna plug in myiPad into my MacBook, I can
(34:26):
actually record my iPad screenfrom there.
So if I wanna like demo me goingfrom app to app and like doing
different things in the appsthat makes sense for me to
record a video.
Yeah, I'm sure Windows or PC hassomething built too.
I'm not so familiar with itthough.
No, nor am
Katie (34:43):
I.
I always use my Mac.
Rachel (34:45):
So we apologize to any PC users out there.
Yeah, I, I think that kind ofwraps it up.
We could talk more aboutenhancing those videos and talk
about EDpuzzle and Nearpod andall that kind of good stuff.
I feel like that is for anotherday though, so we'll leave that
for now.
That's just how to.
(35:07):
Create your videos plan forthem, why you wanna do videos in
the first place, and how torecord them and what kind of
tools you have available.
Yeah.
So
Katie (35:16):
perhaps we, um, de de we'll dedicate an episode to,
you know, once you record yourvideo, what can you do with it
and how can you make it moreinteractive?
Rachel (35:24):
So what we'll do is we'll include any of the
resources or links we talkedabout here today in our show
notes, and you can access ourshow notes for this
episode@edugals.com slash 67.
That's edu g a ls.com/ 67.
And if you like what you heard,
Katie (35:41):
feel free to share it with a colleague or a friend.
And don't forget to subscribe onyour favorite podcast app so
that you don't miss out on anyfuture
Rachel (35:49):
content.
And if you have any tips ordifferent ideas around creating
effective instructional videos,So stuff that works for you that
we haven't talked about heretoday, we would love to hear
what you are doing.
So you can go onto our Flipgridat edu gals.com/flipgrid and
leave us a video message there.
(36:11):
Or you can go onto ourwebsite@edgeedugals.com and
leave us a written reply.
Thanks for
Katie (36:16):
listening and see you next week.
Thanks for listening to thisepisode of our edu Gals podcast.
Show notes for this episode areavailable@edugals.com.
That's edu.
G A l s.com.
(36:37):
We'd also love to hear yourfeedback, so leave us a message
on our website,
Rachel (36:42):
and if you enjoyed what you heard, please subscribe and
consider leaving a rating orreview on your favorite podcast
app.
Until next time, keep beingawesome and try something new.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.