Embedded Files
A fully produced video can incorporate visuals from many sources: original graphics, documentary footage, archival video, animation, and more. When recording on your own, however, your resources are more limited. The basis for your visuals will be what you can display, and thus record, on your computer screen.
Thinking through the visual component of your videos is vital. You may find that some content works better in another medium, like text or a self-paced slide deck.
Common formats
Common formats
Within the limit of what you can show on screen, several options exist:
Presentation slides (e.g. PowerPoint or Google Slide) - Slides will be the most common format for self recorded video. You may already have these as part of your existing materials, and it's a format many presenters are familiar with. Good slide design, however, is important.
Software demos - Students frequently use specific software to complete their course work, such as Excel, R Studio, Statista, MySQL Workbench, and more. Demos and walkthroughs of these tools, or worked examples conducted within a relevant piece of software, are perfect use cases for a screen recording.
External media and resources - Do you have a movie clip, news footage, or a web site that you like to show in class? Sometimes, it will make sense to share that separately. However, a screen recording can be effective when you need to pair that material with commentary or otherwise walk students through it.
Creating effective slides
Creating effective slides
Slide design is an important consideration when presenting in person, but it is even more critical when you are sharing material with video. Your slides represent the majority of your visual content.
Preparing and refining this material can be the most time-intensive part of creating an effective video, rather than the time you spend actually recording a video. Keep the following considerations in mind when you create your slides:
Don't overload your slides with information.
Don't use your slides as speaker notes. If your slides consist of text that is redundant with what you're saying, look for a reinforcing image instead.
If a slide is becoming too dense, you can break the information up across multiple slides so that the content onscreen better corresponds to what you're staying in a given moment.
If a visual needs to be complex, such a diagram or a dataset, avoid distracting or uneccesary visual information elsewhere on the slide.
Use annotations and animations to direct student attention within the slide.
Dense, cluttered slides make information harder to follow.
Remove unnecessary elements, emphasize clear details and direct attention with annotation.
For a deeper dive into how you can improve your slide design both for recordings and for in-person presentations, check out our workshop, "Improving your slide decks." You can view either the recording, or the original slides from that presentation.
Managing your windows
Managing your windows
A focused view of the relevant content is preferable to a view of your full desktop, unless you are actively navigating between separate applications as part of your presentation. A few things to consider:
Use presentation mode - If possible, use presentation mode in your software or set the program you're working in to fullscreen to forefront your content and eliminate extraneous interface elements. Though this can be challenging in some situations--such as using PowerPoint on a single monitor, which makes it difficult to display speaker notes--it is the best practice when you are able to do it.
Turn on "Do Not Disturb" - Turn "Do Not Disturb" on your computer while you are recording to avoid distracting notifications. This can be done on both Windows and Mac.
Mind your system audio - If you're including video clips or software that makes sounds, you'll need to configure your screen capture software to record your desktop audio alongside your microphone. Some recording software may not support this.
The "Do Not Disturb" options in Windows and Mac help prevent interruptions during your recordings.
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