Welcome! Today we will be creating a course navigation video to help your students find their way around your course and get to know you. Canvas Studio has Screencast-o-matic built directly into it AND it has a super easy to use auto-captioning feature. The goal for today is for you to walk away from this session with your own captioned Orientation video!

Today's Agenda:

Welcome: Share your name, department, and experience with video making
Elements of a Course Navigation Video
Quick tutorial on Canvas Studio
Work time - Make your course navigation video
Best Practices in Video Making Wrap Up

Elements of Course Navigation Videos

What to include:

You may choose to have a separate welcome video and course navigation video, or you may choose to combine them. Focusing on just the course navigation elements, here are some suggestions for topics to include in your navigation video.

Start your video on the course home page and point out the various links in the course navigation bar and explain what they are. Be certain to point out these key topics:
- Syllabus
- Announcements
- Grades
Point out the "Inbox" link in the main green navigation bar so that they know where to email you.
Point out where they can find the information for your office hours and encourage them to reach out to you.
Explain how your course is organized overall and what your consistent weekly deadlines are.
Show your students an example module so that they can see how your course is structured each week.
- Point out the "Next" and "Previous" buttons in your modules so that students can see how to progress through your materials.

Filming Tips:

Keep it under 6 minutes.
Use conversational language and humor.
Speak quickly and with enthusiasm.
Be welcoming and positive. This video may be their first introduction to you and your course.
Be certain that you’re not backlit and it is quiet where you’re filming.

Work Time: Directions for Making Your Course Navigation Video

I included these here so that you have them as a reference during the work time portion of the workshop. If at any point you're lost or have questions just turn your video and mic back on in our Zoom session and I will be there to help!

STEP 1: Getting set up to make your video

Open two browser windows:

Browser Window 1: Open up Canvas Studio (linked in the green master side navigation bar).
Browser Window 2: Open up the course you want to make the navigation video for. Select Student View from the right side navigation bar.

STEP 2: Making your video

In your Canvas Studio window select the "record" button on the top right corner and choose "screen capture" option from the drop down menu. You may be prompted to download something if you do not have screencast-o-matic on your computer already.
In the black record box that appears, you want to choose either "screen" or "both."
- "Screen" will only record the portion of your screen inside the black and white outline.
- "Both" will record both your screen AND a tiny talking head of yourself in the right lower corner. or screen if you only want your screen and no talking head.
- "Webcam" will only record you. Not helpful for a course navigation video, but perhaps you will want to use it at other times.
Pull up the course you’re making the navigation video for (double check that you're in Student View), and adjust the black and white screen outline to fit what you what to capture in your recording. You can drag it around and shrink or expand the frame.
Press the red "record" button, watch the 3-2-1 countdown and begin your video.
Press blue "pause" button when done.
Press the "done" button.
Enter in a title for your video and select "upload."
Press "continue" once the video is done and you will see it in your video library.

STEP 3: Captioning your video

You can request captions for any videos that you make or import into Canvas Studio. To request captions:

Select "view" to open your video.
Choose "captions" from the navigation bar underneath your video.
Choose the language from the drop down menu and select request.

Here is a link to the Canvas studio guide on captioning.

STEP 4: Embedding your course navigation video into your course

This is as easy as embedding any media in Canvas. Currently there are two different versions of the Rich Content Editor, so I have included the Canvas Studio guide for you to refer to.

Canvas Studio Guides:

The Studio Guide Table of Contents will let you search for the exact topic and corresponding guide that you need.

Best Practices in Video Making

Today we're focusing on course navigation videos, but since I like to think of course navigation videos as the "gateway drug" to instructional videos, I wanted to take a moment and share some general best practices related to instructional videos.

What kind of instructional videos do students actually watch?

Videos with high numbers of views have direct connections to course assignments. Here are some ways to connect video content to assignments/ assessments:

Include content in the video that is required for an assignment or discussion board post.
Create a video that is a prototype of a key course assignment.

How long should I make my videos?

Several studies, including one out of Columbia University, have reported that the average amounts of time that viewers watch media (in aggregates) is roughly 4 minutes. This is true across programs and courses, even when considering longer-form videos. The general recommendation is to create videos that are 6 minutes or less.

Trying to recreate a classroom on the internet by producing 45-minute lectures isn’t going to work. If you’re creating longer-form lecture content, consider chunking it into shorter content segments.

How to decide what to topics to make videos for?

Here are the criteria I use:

Any topic that students routinely misunderstand on assignments or in class.
Any concepts delivered more effectively with visuals.
Any topics or concepts that students can’t just read as text.
Directions for how to navigate the course and directions for major assignments.
To provide feedback on assignments, such as using “A” student work to model an element of a discussion board or assignment that students’ struggled with.
To answer complicated student questions that I think other students might also be wondering about in online classes.
Videos I can reuse, but still make relevant for each specific class.

Tips on Video Style:

Avoid being a talking head. Add in audio visual elements to support the content.
Use conversational language and humor.
Speak quickly and with enthusiasm.
Use real life examples/ scenarios.
Be certain that you’re not backlit and it is quiet where you’re filming.

Recommended Reading

I really can't say enough about the Center for Teaching, Vanderbelt University, "Effective Educational Videos," by Cynthia Brame for excellent research based recommendations about educational videos. I strongly encourage you to read it! I certainly wish I had read it before I started making my own instructional videos. :)

Prepared by Heather McCarty for LCW Fall 2020