Amanda Pruka

Video Tutorials

Steps for making tutorial videos, uploading to Youtube, adding captions, fixing sound, adding captions, editing video, and making a home for them on your website.

Equipment: microphone, Internet, computer, pencil, scratch paper

Audience/Skill level: easy, requires basic understanding of computers

Step 1. Choose a program

There are lots of programs for creating videos with screen-shots. Many schools have propietary software such as Camtasia. The basic level of Camtasia at my school was very limited in what it could capture, and it was really complicated to save the videos. It required me to save it through a MnSCU database, and I was not all that comfortable with that. I simply wanted more control over my creation. Thus, I chose Screencast because it is free, it highlights cursor movement, and it is really easy to use. Screencast offers a paid upgrade, but many of the adverstised features are available in Youtube for free. The drawback to working with the Youtube settings is that it is saved to Youtube, not your computer file, although there may be a way to download them that I don’t know about.

Step 2. Write a Transcript

I was advised to do this, and it is indeed a good idea. You want your videos to be really concise, and it is easy to get off track without a transcript. However, there are some cons with transcripts. 1. It is harder than it seems to read out loud and sound natural. 2. It can be hard (it was for me) to type and read at the same time (and sound natural). To overcome some of these issues, it is a good idea to practice reading the transcript before you even start recording. You will find errors and things that are missing that will frustrate you a lot more if you are recording because you will have to start over and over again.

Step 3. Familiarize yourself with the ScreenCast functions

It is less frustrating to familiarize yourself with the controls before you start recording. For some people, this may take only a few seconds, for others, (like me) much longer.

Step 4: Test your microphone

It is important to test the microphone levels. The program will tell you if your volume is sufficient. I tend not to speak loudly enough. To fix this, I propped the micorphone up, so it was closer to my face.

Step 4. Record the video

All you need to do is speak and type perfectly and everything will be great! Or, speak as clearly as possible and don’t worry so much about being perfect. It is possible many students may appreciate that you sound natural rather than totally polished. Overly polished presentations often lull students to sleep. Tips:

Resize the screen at the

corners or sides

Resize here or drag the edges

Start and stop

Test sound levels here

1. It is okay to have pauses and “ums”- These can be removed in editing.

2. It is okay to type slowly. Many students will try to follow along, and it can be helpful to do some things slowly.

3. Try not to move the cursor around unncessarily. Screencast highlights the cursor on the screen which is mostly helpful, but too much of it can be a little distracting and obstruct vision.

Step 6. “Publish” (save) your video

Screencast has several options for publishing your video. You can publish to Youtube or publish to a file. I chose to publish to a file so that I could have an actual file on my computer. I felt this gave me a little more control over the work.

Next, choose a file type to save the video. This will depend on the software you have on your computer. Most computers have Quicktime or Flash installed either because it was preinstalled or because they were prompted to install it to watch a video. Because these are simple, short videos, it probably does matter which format you use for any quality reasons. However, animated GIF will not work because it does not play sound. I choose MP4 because I knew I had Quicktime on my work computer. Of course Quicktime will play other file types too. All of these files are supported by Youtube.

Quicktime (MP4) = Quicktime software (free): http://www.apple.com/uk/quicktime/download/

Windows Media (AVI) = Windows program – should be preinstalled.

Flash (FLV) = Adobe Flash Player (free): http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/

Animated Image (GIF) = No sound- bad choice for a tutorial

Step 4. Create a Youtube Channel (if you don’t already have one)

There were a lot more options than I realized for Youtube channels. You can add pictures, a description, and links to other sites. I have done some, but not all of these things. I thought the description and tags were most important for finding the videos, so I focused on that.

Step 5. Upload your video

This is pretty straighforward. Click the Upload button and follow the instructions. It is like attaching a file to an email. When you are finished you can add a title, tags and a description. This is a good idea even if you are linking the video directly from your own site. If a student watches your video and then another, they may want to go back to your video. This will be easier for them if it is clearly labeled. Because these are tutorials, I would title it exactly what it is and use tags that use natural language and technical language or whatever seems appropriate for your audience.

Step 6. Editing Video

This part is really fun! There are a lot of artistic effects in Youtube that are fun to play around with although none were needed or appropriate for my videos. It may be a future project! I focused on trimming videos. If you have ever wished you could simply erase something awkward that you said, this is your chance! You can trim parts of your video out at any point in the video. The Camtasia software I started with only lets you trim the begining or end, and you can only trim in Screencast if you get the paid version.

To get to the Trimming editor, click: Video Manager – Video – Enhancements – Trim.

The options to the left will appear below the screen. Find the moment that you would like to erase by listening to your video. I used a pencil to write down the precise times. From there, click Split which will add a blue section with arrows pointing out into the timeline. You can adjust the sections to be removed. If you do not

like the split, you can also remove it with the Clear button. Click Done when you are finished.

Step 7. Adding Captions:

Adding captions is a little time-consuming, but well worth the bother. Youtube uses voice recognition software to supply ready-to-go free closed captions, and boy are they awful. Here is a visual of how to get started with entering your own captions. This is a shot from inside the “Video Manager” menu:

Step 3: Click on one of these. I chose this one because my transcript didn’t match up very

well

Step 1: Click here

Step 2: Select your languageClick here to add annotations

This represents time that will be trimmed.

These directions seem sort of obvious to me now, but the first five times I looked at it, I thought that it was telling me that it already provided English subtitles. It wasn’t opening either. But like most things: it is easy, once you understand it.

Once you are in the captions menu, you will see options to the right of your video. You will also see a timeline along the bottom that lets you expand, shrink, move, and eliminate captions. You can see your captions in the boxes (what the captions actually say). Press play on your video and begin typing into the big box.

The video will stop playing when you are typing, which makes it easy to keep up. Press enter after about a sentence. When you press enter, the caption moves below. Each of these captions represent one screen. This means that they will appear together at the designated start and stop times. The start and stop times can be adjusted using the options to the right, or using the timeline at the bottom of the screen. You will want to watch the video over to adjust the time to make sure the captions are on screen long enough to be read easily.

What does this mean? It doesn’t matter. If you click on it a few times, it

opens and gives you options that actually make sense.

Enter your captions here. Press Enter after about a sentence. The video will stop playing as you type.

Click on an annotation to edit it

Step 6. Adding Annotations

After I finished a video and uploaded it to Youtube, I realized that I had forgotten to include one small, but important detail. Rather than redoing the video, I added an annotation. From the Video Manger, click on Videos and find Annotations and click that (see picture in Step 7).

Once you click on Add Annotation, a box will appear in your video. You can move and reshape the annotation box. You can also choose font styles, sizes, and colors. The Start and End options at the bottom of the screen let you adjust when the annotation will appear and when it will stop. You can also move the annotation across the time line just as with captions.

When you are finished, do not forget to click Publish.

Use the arrow to shrink or expand the time the caption appears on the screen.

Customize the font, color and text box here.

Adjust the time it starts and stops

Add your annotation in the Note Box

Step 7. Adjusting Sound

If you did a proper sound check before creating your videos, this should be fine. I double-checked mine by comparing them with other videos on Youtube. They seemed fine to me, so I don’t have anything more to say about sound.

Step 8. Making your videos findable

Making a video and publishing it to Youtube does not guarantee your students, or any students, will find it. My students are often really surprised when I tell them that Youtube has tutorials, which tells me that they are not going to find help because they don’t think it is out there. This means outreach and visibility are important. I started with the Writing Center’s website. We have an “Online Tutoring Resources” section in our website that has long been under-utilized and in need of updating. I went through all twenty or so randomly placed links and reviewed them for accuracy and relevance.  I eliminated a few links and added a few more. Basically, I created a good old-fashioned libguide. A link to my Youtube Channel is on the top of the page under “Citations: APA, MLA, and More.” I kept the descriptions to links really sparse because too much text can be overwhelming, and in this context, it is unnecessary.

Links:

Inver Hills Writing Center Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtfN49hj5tO7UluB6hFzE2Q

Inver Hills Community College Writing Center: https://www.inverhills.edu/StudentResources/WritingCenter/OnlineTutorResources.aspx

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