Creating and using videos in your teaching

Lecture capture

Lecture capture, also sometimes referred to as course recordings, is a way that you can record your voice and what's on your screen (and optionally video of you talking) in order to make it available in video format to students in Moodle via YuJa. Lecture capture is a great way to create short bursts of content that can be watched at any time. It can consist of:

• an audio recording of the lecture
• an audio recording of the lecture along with a slide show
• an audio recording of the lecture recording cursor movement, typing, and other non-cursor movement like writing with a stylus on a tablet.
   

The benefits of lecture capture

Course recordings can be used:

• to make lectures more accessible to learners with language barriers or learning disabilities
• to review topics that were not clear when presented the first time in class; students can fast-forward to a specific part that they did not understand and listen to it as often as needed
• to review before an assessment whenever, wherever and as often as they want
• as an alternative for a missed class
   

What kind of courses and classes benefit most from lecture capture?

Recording live lectures is especially useful for large lectures with many students. Furthermore, it is best suited to classes that primarily rely on instructor-led lectures accompanied by slides or documents.  Because the microphone is limited to the instructor, highly interactive classes do not lend themselves well to this software because those audio  interactions will not be captured on the video.  Similarly, classes that involve a heavy chalkboard or white board use need to be adapted to a document camera in order to capture it.

How lecture capture works

The instructor starts recording using the podium computer at the beginning of the class session. The video will capture the slides displayed on the computer along with the instructor's voice when used with a microphone. Immediately after stopping the recording, the video is uploaded to the instructor's Media folder in their YuJa account. Once the video has rendered, the instructor will be able to make the video available on Moodle. 

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Video lectures & other types of instructor-created videos

Recording your own videos allows more flexibility in the kinds of content instructors can bring to the classroom and how that content is accessed.

Although videos are often recorded for online, blended and flipped teaching, video offers the potential to make learning more flexible and accessible to all students regardless of the format.

There are endless possibilities when it comes to the kinds of videos your can bring to the classroom. In addition to lectures, it presents an opportunity to bring the outside world into the classroom. Here are just a few examples of some of the ways that videos can be used to support learning in any class:

• Give a tour of your Moodle course (e.g. go over content organization, collaborative tools, and communication strategies etc.)
• Introduce your course requirements (e.g. syllabus, assigned readings, assignments, deadlines, etc.). Consider using the Lightboard for this kind of video.
• Introduce yourself to students to establish an online teaching presence and promote a welcoming learning environment
• Clarify difficult concepts and answering students’ questions  mini lectures
• Do a worked example (an instructor talks through the steps in solving a problem - promotes disciplicary thinking)
• Deliver a guest lecture
• Demonstrate a lab experiment
• Show a performance
• Do a demonstration
• Show processes
• Provide examples, scenarios, and other footage from the field
• Explain an assignment 
• Review an exam
• Give general feedback to the class on common issues in an test or other assessment