Why use or develop videos for your course?
Pearson Ed is reporting that “Gen Z believes YouTube is a bigger contributor to their education than textbooks.” (https://www.axios.com/youtube-education-teaching-students-generation-z-fa60d828-2492-42d0-9102-3edb1a59592e.html) Just as images became more widely available to academics in the late 90s, videos are now widely available. Accordingly, students expect to learn from video.
For context, consider that humans have been around for 200,000 years, but existed in a text-based world for a mere 600 years. We evolved to process moving 3-D objects, and therefore movement is a salient feature for visual perception.
Videos have additional value for reaching the five to ten percent of the population that has dyslexia, which makes reading difficult. Robert Rauschenberg, one of the most influential American artists of his time, was profoundly dyslexic. He said, “The possibility exists to nourish an important new genius in learning-disabled children, if their spirit is not broken and creative dreams are allowed to develop” (Personal Stories: Robert Rauschenberg, By: Robert Rauschenberg, LDOnline). With videos we reach those geniuses who draw in the margins while struggling with text.
If you choose to use videos, should you make your own?
Making videos can be very time consuming. If you teach lower division courses, you should find videos already developed and available online. Save yourself time, and find one.
Remember that as an academic your search for videos may yield scholarly content rather than educational content. Ask students to search and recommend videos, then curate their recommendations.
If you decide to make your own video
The first question you should ask yourself is whether images are necessary. If you can describe everything verbally then podcast! Synchronizing narration and images can take extra time so if you don’t need images, just record the narration and stop there. Podcasts of often more accessible. Students can listen while in transit.
If you need images, and your content is specialized (e.g., in an upper division course), then create your own video.
Your options for creating videos
| Solutions/Stategies | Advantages | Disadvantages |
| 1 Record narration in powerpt | Fast, familiar, cheap | Can’t post on a video site. Can’t hold students accountable for listening. |
| 2 Cell phone recording | Fast, familiar, cheap | Low quality, need lighting
Automatic gain turn paper 18% gray so videos appear dark. |
| 3 Echo Personal capture | Fast, free | Limited editing the last time I tried, which was awhile ago. |
| 4 Camtasia | Flexible, fast. Great editing, extra features (e.g., ,music, transition functions). Easy to learn | $180.00 (Educational Version) |
| 5 One Touch Studio | Fast, high quality for short videos
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Would be difficult for a whole lecture. Use instead for short, focused tutorials. |
| 6 VideoScribe (or other) | Polished, clever, fun | $$, easy to learn,
Limited images unless you develop your own.
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