Ed Tech in the Library: Tools & Techniques

Consider making a video when:

• Your learners are completely remote and asynchronous. 
• Your learners won't receive a formal instructional session from you.
• Flipping the classroom. Learners can watch the video before going to class, which frees up class time for interacting with and applying the new knowledge. 
• Following up with learners after an instructional session. Providing a follow-up video provides learners with the opportunity to rewatch you teach something as many times as they need to in order to perform the steps themselves. It also provides learners who were unable to attend your session with a way to learn the material.

Tufts Educational Technology Services provides the community with several tools for recording. For more information about the educational tools they provision and support, contact Educational Technology Services: edtech@tufts.edu

Not sure which tool is the best for your purposes? Check out the Video Tools for Teaching decision tree.

Please keep in mind this is not an exhaustive list and that best practices change over time as student populations change. This list will be updated as research suggests modifications to best practices.

• Add captions to your videos. This can be done by importing your videos into Kaltura and "ordering captions" from within Canvas. If you do not have access to a canvas page, email edtech@tufts.edu and request a sandbox site. For more information on captioning, please review captioning tools for teaching.
• Having a plan of what you're going to say or a script will make recording easier and your videos more succinct. 
• Chunk the content within your videos and consider making several shorter videos over a single long video when possible. This makes it easier for viewers to jump to the content they are interested in.
• Demoing something live? Consider keeping mistakes, such as mistyping, something in to show that mistakes are normal. Mistakes such as clicking an incorrect button or going to an incorrect page can be distracting and confusing to learners, it's recommended those are edited out.