How can I create engaging learning materials using easy multimedia tools?

Instructional Solutions

Online students and instructors alike often find themselves overwhelmed by walls of text. Add various types of content to your courses so that students can engage with the course content in different ways. 

1. Take advantage of “teachable moments” by recording short video announcements when you notice that students are confused. Use these messages to clarify instructions and/or answer questions for the entire class. Don’t worry about making your on-the-fly videos perfect (Darby & Lang, 2019) and keep them under 6 minutes. Research tells us that brief, authentic videos are more likely to get students’ attention (Guo, Kim, & Rubin, 2014).

2. Similarly, consider recording a quick mini-lecture in which you highlight certain parts of a recent reading.

3.  Add a short, graded assessment after each required video to hold your “ruthlessly efficient” students accountable for watching them. A short, auto-graded quiz with questions that can be answered correctly only if they’ve watched the recording are easy for you to manage (Darby & Lang, 2019). Add a category for these quizzes to your Grading Scheme when you set up the course. You can make the category work for either a Percentage or Points Scheme.

4.  Annotated PDFs and web readings

5.  Infographics

Ed Tech Quick Guides

• Create a video announcement using Video Note. 

• To embed videos in content pages in CourseDen, see this guide. 

• To create an auto-graded quiz in CourseDen, see this guide.

• To create a category in your grading scheme for “on-the-fly” videos, see this guide.