Online Content Creation

Overview

This page contains some suggestions for creating better quality online learning content. These are mostly opinion based, but the idea is to use this page as a single point of access for ideas, tips and tricks when creating online content.

For more information, visit Category: Content Creation.

General

• Use a script. This helps prevents "Uhms and ahs" and ensure you convey the information you want to as coherently and briefly as possible.

Videos

• You can use OBS to record your screen: https://obsproject.com/
• You can use Kdenlive to do any editing: https://kdenlive.org/en/download/
• Recommend using Handbrake https://handbrake.fr/downloads.php for reducing the size of videos and adjusting the resolution (recommend using the default present "Fast 1080p30" which is suited to full HD resolution (1920 x 1080 pixels) that works well on PCs (you may want to reduce if targeting smartphones and not having particularly complex imagery in your presentations).

Audio

• For recording, any software will work
• When recording, normalizing and removing background noise makes the audio much more professional and easier to listen to.
  • Record a second or so of silence to allow you to capture the noise floor
  • You can use Audacity to capture the noise floor and remove it.
  • You can use Audacity to normalize the volume. -1dB is the standard normalization volume

Workflow

YouTube Tutorial Videos

For YouTube videos, a suggested approach is as follows:

1. Write a short script, making notes of what you would like to say.
2. If you are doing a demonstration, run through the demonstration and ensure you touch on all points, taking note of where you may need to pause, or edit out things that take time, such as a loading bar
3. Record the script in Audacity, being sure to normalize and remove noise floor.
4. While playing back the audio to yourself, use OBS Studio to record the actions taken.
5. Edit the recorded audio and video together using Kdenlive

Slideshow Videos/Lectures

You can:

1. Insert voice recordings into the slides.
   1. This can be arduous for students who want to play/pause recordings, or go at a different pace.
   2. In PowerPoint, you can export slideshows as videos. This option may save time if you're looking at creating simple videos.
2. Use OBS to record both yourself and the slideshow.
   1. This makes a simple video, though may limit students who don't have much data to watch videos.
   2. You can use Kdenlive or other software to split the audio and video, and upload the audio separately to Vula, so students can download the audio to listen to while they go through the slides
3. Use the process described in "YouTube Tutorial Videos" above
   1. This allows you to insert other videos, clips, etc with ease