Sourcing the videos (8th Jan 2012)

Many would be tempted to stop here.  We have broken the work down, we have created the handbook, the assignment is in the format required by the awarding body - what else is there to do?  You will have quite a lot of materials if you have been following the system.  Surely, all that stuff is enough?

I would argue that it is the minimum required rather than the answer.  The coursework is there and the handbook is there.  But we have excluded all those students who do not learn by reading.  "Ahhh," I hear you say, "but that is what I will do in the classroom or lecture theatre.  I will teach!".  Teaching is good (or it would not have survived so long), but it forces students to move at the same pace and that alienates another swathe of learners.  What is needed is other forms of presenting the materials ... enter YouTube stage left.  The first step is to see what is out there already, so enter the first topic into the search box and see what you get.

You will need a video for each note in your unit stack in Evernote.  In my case that would be 35 videos.  Don't forget that the unit and the criteria all have their own notes, so these need criteria, not just subject matter.  There are no videos that explain what is required for Unit 14 - Event Driven Programming - by EdExcel, so I will have to make that one.  If there are no videos on the unit in general, then there are unlikely to be videos on each of the criteria.  We are therefore down to the subject matter.  The first topic is "event driven programming languages" and typing that in brings up the video I created for an earlier unit.  This highlights the reuseability of the whole process - create once, use often.  One of the pains in our area is the frequency with which the syllabus has to change.  Most of it stays the same, but topic A goes out and topics B and C come in.  An atomised learning system makes this a far less onerous business.

You will have to watch each potential video since the quality of some are dubious.  This takes time, but is another task that can be slotted in between other bits of work.  You need two pieces of information; the URL of the video and the code for the web page.  To get these you need to start the video by clicking on it.  You will then get something like :-

Note the Share button.  Click on that and you will get :-


You get the information you need by clicking on the Embed button.  Copy both the text in the oval area and that in the oblong area to the note for this atom - you will need both later.

This process will leave you with a list of videos that you need to create.  Each video will need to go through the following stages :-

  1. Planning - What sort of video do want (indoors, outdoors, screen capture or a mix of these) and what do you need to say?  I prefer a prompt sheet to a script.
  2. Production - Getting the raw video either by filming it or capturing the screen.
  3. Editing - Adding a title, credits and sub-titles and then editing out the bloopers.
  4. Uploading to YouTube - You need a YouTube Channel and to have a note of the oval and oblong text as shown above for your video.
  5. Generating the MP3 - Your students may learn best this way, so make it available to them.

The final version should be around 3 to 5 minutes so that those watching have less to assimilate.  Some may be shorter and on rare occasions (such a explaining a process) it may be longer.

Stage 1 requires either a piece of paper and a pencil or a word processor.  You will have to try things to see what works best for you.  Do not be afraid of experimenting - that is how we all learn.  It is not the mistakes along the way that matter, but whether we reach our destination.

Stage 2 requires either a digital video camera (even mobile phones can be used now) or screen capture software.  I use KDENLIVE to capture the desktop on my Linux PC and CamStudio when using Windows.  There are good introduction to these on YouTube, just click on the links.  Both of these are free.  However, if you are using Windows then Camtasia is rather slicker than Camstudio, but it does cost over £230 at the moment (January 8th, 2012).  A couple of tips for those recording outside - stand in the sun, facing the sun when recording and do not record when it is windy.  I've learnt these the hard way.  Finally, record several versions.  It is easier to copy/paste between clips than to go back and re-record scenes.

Stage 3 requires software too.  MovieMaker comes free with Windows and is a good package because it is quite easy to use.  I use KDENLIVE on my Linux PC since it does both the recording and editing.  Unfortunately, video editing take artistic flair and talent ... neither of which I possess, but you can still make the videos acceptable without.  Do add title pages and a credit screen so that others can recognise the talent they see in front of them (either that or you get free mouldy tomatoes).

Stage 4 requires you to create a YouTube account.  These come as standard if you have a GMail account (a necessity anyway, as you will see later).  Uploading is very difficult once you have your account - please smell the sarcasm.  You click the Upload link and then drag your finished video from your file manager into the area shown.

You will then be asked some questions about naming the file, what key words people can use to find the video and terms under which you want it distributed.  There - done - you are now an academic star!  However, do make sure you copy the two links as shown above into your note.

The final stage is to generate an MP3 file from the audio of your videos.  If you go to http://www.youtube-mp3.org/ and enter the text from the oval area (the shorter one), like this :-

After a while you will get the light green area shown above and then the Download link appears when it is complete.  Click on the Download link and save the file to a sensible place - well, at least one you will remember.  If you wish, you can use Audacity to edit the audio file.  I have found that taking out the "blank" time at the beginning and end is the minimum that I need to do.  Audacity is available free for both Linux and Windows.

You now have your materials as text (the handbook), as videos on YouTube and as a sound files.  Your hard work will not only help your students, but also ensure that a change in syllabus is not a major re-write for you.