Opening Presentation

In the final three weeks, we review the foundational learnings of this MicroMasters course. I revised the learning theories section in the IDD with insights I gained through my own learning in this course.

The assignment is to create an opening presentation with a screencast for the intended learners. While learning the ropes with Camtasia, I created 3 mins preview video to welcome learners and introduce them to the navigation panel in the Canvas LMS. My intention is to provide learners with a light touch on delightful learning experiences which I try to create. Please excuse the watermark on the video since I used the free trial version.

Screencast: 

• Give learners the ability to pause, stop, or hide any content that starts automatically and moves, scrolls, or blinks for longer than five seconds.  WCAG 2.2.2 Pause, Stop, Hide - Level A

• No page content flashes more than 3 times per second. Some people with seizure disorders can have a seizure triggered by flashing visual content.  WCAG 2.3.1 Three Flashes or Below Threshold - Level A

Captions: A text version of the dialogue and non-dialogue audio information to understand the content, for people who are deaf, hard of hearing, and others. “Closed Captions (CC)” can be activated by the viewer on Youtube. It's possible to create "Open-Captions" with Camtasia but the function was not covered with the free trial.  

TechSmith Camtasia Accessibility Conformance Report v2.4

Process

1. Map out the process and decide which tool is the best for the screencast project

2. Write scripts (plan ahead to add descriptions of visual information)

3. Record and edit voiceover with Audacity

4. Learn Camtasia

5. Draw a rough storyboard with visual clips and images

6. Load the template with voiceover, clips, and images

7. Record screencast with Camtasia

8. Edit the video with the voice-over

9. Upload the video and add captions on YouTube

10. Embed the Youtube video into Welcome! page in Canvas

11. Upload the descriptive transcript in YouTube and Canvas close to the video

12. Update the storyboard

Challenges & Solution

First, I wrote a script as a tutorial for a module but soon realized that I also needed to create a welcome video, so I turned the tutorial into a preview. I cut back the explanatory tutorial clip for another project specific to the unit and focused on messaging a delightful learning experience I strive to create.

In the end

I learned the basic use of Camtasia with tutorials. Their tutorials are short, to the point, and actionable, and I liked the user-friendly interface. I didn't notice that the closed caption download was only for paid users, so I manually copied the scripts on YouTube.