Best Practices for Creating Quality Educational Videos

1. Internet Speeds
2. Audio
3. Screen Font Size
4. Webcam or No Webcam?
5. Reduce Video Noise
6. Prefer Dynamic Content When Possible

One of the major factors that can contribute to students’ online learning experience is the quality of the lecture videos they must watch. It makes sense then, that one of the best ways to increase student engagement is online courses is to ensure the quality of the production is decent. A few minor checks can have major engagement implications!

Carleton’s Capture Support Team has curated five key checks that you can go through before investing time in creating your lecture videos.

Internet Speeds

Regardless of how professional your setup is, poor internet connections can drastically decrease the quality of your recording. 

• Wired over Wifi: An ethernet connection can make all the difference when you’re uploading your videos to MediaSpace. 
• Upload Speeds Matter: When testing your internet connection (at speedtest.net for example), pay particular attention to the upload speeds. Fast Download speeds are great for streaming your videos. But, getting them up into MediaSpace requires decent upload speeds. We recommend a minimum of 5Mbsp upload speed and higher upload speeds will make your audio sound, and your video look, better.

Audio

Your students need to be able to understand you! Poor audio can impact students’ ability to understand you and can decrease engagement. Especially for educational videos, the audio is more important than the video. Students won’t watch videos they can’t hear or understand. 

• Choose an external microphone: In most cases, the built-in microphones on your devices will not produce decent sound. So, use an external microphone when possible. 
• Computer Speakers Off: Keeping your computer speakers off when you record can eliminate issues like audio feedback. If you need to hear your computer, then wear headphones or earbuds. 
• Sound Check: Each time you record, check to make sure the mic you plan to use is the one selected by your recording tool. Then, 

1. 1. 1. Record yourself speaking (say things with “s” and “t” sounds – like “check two, six”). Testing these sounds in particular gives you the ability to test harsh sounds to check for high volume and whistling.
      2. Turn your system’s audio output down to half volume and through headphones check to see if you can hear yourself speak.  

Screen Font Size

If you’re sharing your screen, remember that what you see might not be exactly what your audience is seeing – especially when it comes to sizing (e.g., Font Size). 

• Check your font size: Make sure that you can read your screen share from a cell phone screen. The rule of thumb for text sizes in face-to-face video presentations (i.e., minimum of 24-point sans serif font) is also true for online presentations.   
• Increase your shared screen readability: When it’s not possible to change the size of font on your screen (e.g., webpage sharing), think about ways you can magnify your screen during your recordings. For Mac users, Apple’s documentation page demonstrates how to toggle zoom. For PC users, check out Microsoft’s tool. 

Webcam or No Webcam?

Is sharing your webcam necessary and helpful for your lecture video? Just because you can share your webcam footage, doesn’t mean it’s beneficial to your students.  

• Include Webcam: When the footage of you adds meaning or personal connection to the lecture video. If you are going to include a talking head, be sure to maintain eye contact with the webcam. Looking away can send a signal to students that they too should look away.  
• Exclude Webcam Footage: When the footage of you distracts from the lecture video. For example, if you’re sharing a dynamic process on your screen, your webcam footage can distract from the moving parts and meaning of your production.

Reduce Video Noise

One of the ways to make sure that your webcam footage is not distracting from students’ learning is to decrease the visual noise. This can be done in three basic checks:

• Reduce distracting background items: the plainer your background, the less distracting for students.   
• Check framing: In photography, there is a Rule of Thirds (explained more in this external blog). In short, if you were to cut your webcam footage in thirds, your eyes should be on the top line. 
• Check lighting: the best way to make sure that you’re well lit is to have your light source come from behind the camera. At the very least, try to make sure your light source isn’t behind you. The optimal solution is to have Three-Point Lighting, which means two lights directed at you from 45 degrees and a soft light from overhead (see the image below).

Prefer Dynamic Content When Possible

Try not to talk over the same slide for more than one minute. If it’s necessary to do so, you might consider adding movement into the slide. For example, you can zoom in on certain components of a complex diagram. Alternatively, you could use annotations to add some movement and direct students’ attention to appropriate areas of the screen. The main goal in creating quality educational videos is to increase the signal (i.e., engage audience) while decreasing the noise (i.e., reduce distractions). One way to accomplish this is to put less content on each slide and increase the number of slides.

As instructors, we put a lot of time and effort into teaching our courses. These video checks are not meant to add to this time but rather reduce the time spent fixing them once you’ve finished recording. In fact, most of the time, it’s easier to re-record videos than it is to use software to fix them. 

The Capture Support Team is here to help you! Please send us your Media Quality Checks and we can give you feedback before you start recording hours of lecture material.

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