Video Course Intros

Video Introductions to Courses

The College of Global Futures has a YouTube channel dedicated to short introductions to courses in SFIS, SOS and SCAS: 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCm5aHLVhkCRMfmwuHt95i7Q

If you are looking for ways to inform prospective students about your course, or channels to increase awareness about what you teach, this is a potentially useful platform.

YOUTUBE CHANNEL

Check out current course introduction videos here.

Creating Introductory Course Videos

Effective course introduction videos can be produced a number of ways, from recording yourself on Zoom, to setting up a sophisticated studio, and even using on-campus video facilities. However, the most important aspects of a successful are how engaging, authentic and informative they are, and how short they are! Successful videos don't have to be technically polished, but they do need to be interesting and authentic!

Basic Guidelines

Know what you're going to say before recording. It's important to keep your narrative tight, engaging and to the point. Scripting is a great idea and makes for much stronger videos, but reading from a script rarely works!

Keep your video to essentials. You don't need to tell viewers everything about the course, just enough to get them interested and excited!

Keep it short! Ideally you need to aim for 1 - 2 minutes maximum.

Position your head -- and your eyes especially -- in the top half of the screen. Having your face in the center of the screen looks odd, and appearing in the bottom half of the screen looks more odd still! If you are recording from a laptop's built-in camera, prop the laptop up on some books to raise the height.

Ensure that your face is well-lit. Try and make sure that back-lighting isn't overshadowing you. 

Look directly at the camera when recording. Viewers are incredibly sensitive to eye movement, and shifting your gaze and focus makes you look disengaged and inauthentic.

Speak with animation! For a video to come across as engaging, you'll find you need to be more animated in how you talk than you would if just speaking to another person.

Be enthusiastic! Potential students want to see that you're excited about what you teach!

Be authentic! More than anything, viewers look for authenticity in videos. Slight stumbles and glitches, and less than perfect video quality, are easily forgiven if viewers feel that you are being authentic and honest with them.

Don't let the great be the enemy of the good. A good video that makes it to potential students is always better than a great video that is never completed.

Learn from videos that you like. It's the easiest and fastest way to get better!

SUBMITTING VIDEOS

Before submitting your video for inclusion on the College Course Intro YouTube channel, please complete this form

The completed form and video should be emailed to Andrew Maynard at andrew.maynard@asu.edu. If your video is too large to be emailed (which it most likely will be), please send a link to a file on Google Drive or Dropbox.

We'll try and get your video up within a couple of days, and will send you a link when it's there.

When it's up, you should feel free to send the link to anyone who is potentially interested, or who can help market your course!

example videos