CREATING AND USING VIDEOS - KHADIJA MAHSUD, INSTRUCTIONAL CONSULTANT, CTL NAYEF ALYAFEI, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, PETE MOHAMMAD ALGAMMAL, TECHNICAL ...

Creating and Using Videos
     Khadija Mahsud, Instructional Consultant, CTL
        Nayef Alyafei, Assistant Professor, PETE
 Mohammad AlGammal, Technical Lab Coordinator, MEEN

                      May 2021

Today’s Contributors
                        Thank you!

              Dr. Nayef Alyafei   Mohammad AlGammal
            Assistant Professor   Technical Laboratory Coordinator
Petroleum Engineering Program     Mechanical Engineering Program

Presentation

Video Types - an informal overview

Dr. Alyafei’s video making process

Microlectures

Mohammad AlGammal’s video making process

Resources (screen recording, editing etc.)

Video ‘Types’ - an informal overview
1. Record yourself (video or audio) talking about housekeeping matters
   - Here’s what’s coming on the exam
   - Here’s how to get started on assignment X
   - Next week, we will …

2. Record an introductory video talking about your passion for your field, record check ins to build
   community
3. Record a live class and upload portions of it for students to watch/review later*
4. Screen capture + voice-over of you doing something on your computer
5. Create a video on a topic/theme (recorded, animated, screen-captured, etc.)
6. Assign students a video created by someone else                               Who is the audience?

   - as homework                                                                 - Students that specific
   - as revision                                                                  semester
                                                                                 - Students enrolled in the
   - as an introduction to a concept that will be further developed in class)     course in any semester
                                                                                 - General public

*FERPA/Zoom Recordings

This pdf has simple instructions for
how to record class without capturing
either the video or the names of the
students connected in the session:

FERPA/Zoom Tutorial

Email servicedesk@qatar.tamu.edu
for local Zoom support

Microlectures

Dr. AlYafei’s videos can be characterized as microlectures.

They’re short and revolve around one very specific subject.

Khan Academy, TED-ED

                                7 Things You Should Know About Microlectures - EDUCAUSE pdf
                                (2012)

Motivation Behind PetroHow

During the COVID-19 pandemic, I noticed that the students are not
retaining the same amout of knowledge as they used do.

This in return, caused a deficiency in mastering subsequent courses.

I have always wanted to create an open-source platform to educate
and inspire others.

Plan

• Create educational videos (3 minutes or less) to cover a certain topic
from my course.

•All the videos should be animated and supported by a voice-over to
explain the process.

Procedure

1. Brainstorm the concept and mentally form the story.
2. Write down the script.
3. Record the voice-over and edit/enhance the audio using Audacity
software (open-access software).

Procedure
4. Create the art objects using Adobe Illustrator/PowerPoint.

            Microsoft PowerPoint                    Adobe Illustrator

Procedure
  4. Create the animation using PowerPoint

Add animation to slides​ - PowerPoint
                                        Microsoft PowerPoint

Procedure
5. Compile the animation segments with the voice-over and
add some touches using Adobe Premiere Pro

    Adobe Premiere
    Pro

Procedure
6. Upload the video to YouTube

Video Example

Introduction to Petrophysics

Notes on Dr. AlYafei’s Videos
Resources for Adobe - VCU Community Classes, AlJazeera Academy,
YouTube
Educators get a discount of up to 60% on Adobe software

Adobe Creative Cloud for students and teachers

YouTube is available to all via TAMU Google Apps - you can create
unlisted videos only viewable by those who have a link to the video
https://google.tamu.edu/ if you’re not ready to make videos “for the
public” yet

Microlectures

Stoichiometry Made Easy:
Stoichiometry Tutorial Part 1        One Minute Intro to Micro-Lectures
                                     Started with screen captures
Briefly features a classic ‘slide’

Recording technical illustrative videos for remote
teaching
● As a consequence of the the lock-down caused by the pandemic, it was
  prohibited to have students on campus for almost a year.

● The MEEN department decided to record all the hands-on experiments with
  complete explanation and details for the students to replace their physical
  presence in the labs and to be used as review material.

● The recordings were used during online Zoom lab sessions and they gave the
  next-best experience to being present physically in the lab.

Target

The target was to create a set of videos that fulfil the following:

 1.   Show the equipment in complete detail.
 2.   Be self-explanatory and show all the involved steps.
 3.   Avoid voice-over explanations and rely on annotations.
 4.   Easy to adjust/edit/correct/update.

My previous experience in video recording and editing:

Almost none!

Resources
For this task, I used the following:
Hardware:
1- My mobile phone.
2- A full size tripod.
Software:
1- Camtasia by TechSmith.
2- Powerpoint.
3- Photo editing software.

Planning the videos
For these videos, I planned the recording as follows:
1- Videos: Short clips, no sound (unless relevant). This made it easy to reshoot
if the result was not satisfactory.
2- Avoiding vocal explanation: This also made it easier to add annotated text
and graphics and eliminated the accent boundaries that might make it hard to
understand. Also it allowed for ease of changing and/or updating the content.
3- Rely on a layer-based time frame software to stitch everything together and
generate decent quality productions.

Invested time

While Camtasia was very easy to learn in a few minutes. Preparing/designing a
video can be a very time consuming process, so is editing the video after
recording.

The first video took almost 3 days to complete with a satisfactory result. But
the following few videos, each took less than a day to complete due to the
repetitive nature of all the videos.

People with more skills and/tools can produce much more creative videos
which would consume more time.

Improvements

● One thing I would improve is to use 2-3 lights sources. Most of the videos
  seemed dark because they were shoot in the basement labs.

● I would have another phone and tripod record from a different angle.

Resources:
 -   Camtasia is available to TAMUQ employees through the TAMU software
     website for a very low cost.

 -   Free photo editing software are in abundance, but I use Paint.net or Gimp.

Texas A&M Software Center

Resources - Look and Feel
How to make your
online lectures look
great (if you’re using a
camera/more
advanced set up)

Sign up for their
checklist: Get The
Lecture Quality
Checklist

Resources - Look and Feel

6 Tips for Recording Video by
Michelle Pacansky-Brockis licensed
under a Creative Commons
Attribution 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at
http://brocansky.com/6-tips-
recording-video-infographic.

Resources - Free Screen            Press Windows Button and G
Recording Options                  Xbox game bar will record apps

Apple has its own screen
recording function and iMovie is
a good, basic video editor
                                               PowerPoint has its own
The X Box Game Bar on Windows                  recording functions

can screen record
Zoom
PowerPoint

Resources - Editing

iMovie is a good, basic video editor
(Apple users)
QuickTime Player (How-to videos,
Apple users)
Microsoft Video Editor (very basic)
Note: MovieMaker is no longer
supported
OpenShot - free, open source
Canva - templates, images, objects

Resources - Objects/Graphs

Powerpoint
Canva - templates, images,
objects
Biorender - via TAMU, good
science resources

Resources - Free Animation Tools

Powtoon
Animaker

… plan and write out your script,
cartoon animations may trivialize
your content if not done well

Keep it Simple/Start Small

                                            Stats from 6.9 million
                                            viewing sessions from 4
                                            different EdX courses …

                                            Engagement

                                            How MOOC Video Production Affects Student Engagement

How I record written math solution videos

Now what?
Byte sized Canvas: 4 Ways to Make Sure Students Are Watching Your Videos
Embed them in the LMS – tracking function, people have written scripts for
viewing all students in one go
Tie it to a grade (homework, quiz, or in-class problem solving based on
video)
Give students something to do after watching it (1 –2 questions, point them
to another resource, have them post a question on the discussion board)
Create a space for students to post videos they find useful
Rule of thumb: every minute of video counts as two –three minutes of
student time

Now what?
Byte sized Canvas: 4 Ways to Make Sure Students Are Watching Your Videos
Embed them in the LMS – tracking function, people have written scripts for
viewing all students in one go
Tie it to a grade (homework, quiz, or in-class problem    solving
                                                If you record     basedofon
                                                              50 minutes   content
video)                                          (whether as chunks or in one go) you’re
                                             expecting students to devote at least 100
Give students something to do after watching minutes
                                             it (1 –2 to
                                                      questions,
                                                         watching itpoint     them
                                                                      .. in other words,
to another resource, have them post a question   onrecord
                                             don’t  the discussion
                                                          a 50 minuteboard)
                                                                          lecture unless
                                             you’re also delivering it live
Create a space for students to post videos they find useful
Rule of thumb: every minute of video counts as two –three minutes of
student time