Many thanks to our speakers: Sue Blackett (HBS), Dr Sam Bizley (Pharmacy) and Adrian Aronsson-Storrier (Law) for sharing their experience and insights at the recent TEL Showcase: Making Screencasts. All were participants in our personal capture / screencasting pilot project 2018/19 and discussed their experience of producing screencasts and engaging students with content:
- Using screencasts with large cohorts and international students
- Creating recordings using a Mac
- Ideas for screencast formats and presentation styles
- Advanced screencasting tips
A recording of the event, and examples of speaker screencasts, can be accessed via the TEL toolkit: What screencasts can I make?
The event highlighted the importance of:
- Creating conversational, personable recording material that gives students a sense of ‘you’. Our speakers recommended:
- turning on your webcam when recording (if possible) as students like to ‘see’ and hear their lecturers when discussing slides or other on-screen visuals.
- using prompts to guide speaking, but avoiding an overly ‘scripted’ narration
2. Keeping recordings concise and chunked, to maintain student interest and help students to digest/group content when reviewing videos.
3. Framing video content by carefully considering naming conventions, sequencing and the making use of the Blackboard text field to add written information/instructions alongside embedded video content
For further screencasting advice and assistance, please book onto our TEL Surgery: Making Screencasts, visit the TEL toolkit pages: Making Screencasts, or raise a TEL Support ticket by emailing DTS@reading.ac.uk.
Jackie Fairbairn (Senior TEL Advisor, CQSD)