Speaker 1: I'm going to tell you the easy way to start making educational videos. There are three main rules and I've got three ideas of ways that you can just make a start making educational videos. I sent out this tweet because there's lots of people that are going to be just making a start on making educational videos and aren't going to have necessarily much of an idea of what to do. I got some pretty interesting replies and the first one was from Alan who said this, before you think about how you're going to make the video or what the content is going You have to think about what's the purpose and what's the audience, which is a really important point. And actually if there's some content out there that already satisfies the purpose and the audience for you, then do you need to be making that video? We don't necessarily need a new explainer video of a cool bit of information about your subject but what we do need is your take on it, your explanation of it. So I need you to think about your own unique selling point. Why should people watch your video on a topic? And that's similar to what Lewis said in response to my tweet, which was that you need to find your own style. We've got enough explanations of key parts of our syllabuses, but what we don't have is your unique explanation. So I suggest you start with that. Get your ideas flowing and start with the thing that you think you explain better than anybody else. So here are my three rules for when you're making an educational video. The first is don't start with a blank page. We do not need another visualiser video with you starting with a blank page and taking ages to write the title. Start by actually having information on the page already and add to it. Go after the ums and errs. Actually stop and re-record bits if you've ummed and erred your way through it and it's not a really coherent or confident explanation of what you're trying to get across. You can correct a lot of that stuff through editing but the more you get right as you're filming the easier the editing is going to be later. And do some editing. Don't just upload the video as it is, warts and all. Use those existing PowerPoint skills and I think you're going to like idea number three which is how you can make an educational video entirely within PowerPoint. Sound is one of the most important things so talk as if you're talking to your classroom. They're listening attentively let's say but you still need to use your classroom oration voice when you're talking to a camera. And try to be aware of the speed that you're going. Try to be aware of the pace that you're going. It could speed up loads and definitely don't slow down so it's so boring because remember you do not have a captive audience. They will just click away. Make sure you know where whatever microphone is that you're using. If you're using your laptop it's normally found out by the webcam. If you're using a phone then it'll be on the base of it probably. Try and see what works best for sound. It is really important to get it right. Usually the best idea is to have the microphone as close as possible to your mouth so even using something like a set of headphones which has a microphone built in might be the best solution for you. So the three rules let's just recap them. Don't start with a blank page whatever you're doing. Recording chunks and go after the ums and errs and do at least some editing afterwards. So the three ideas that I have of ways you can just get started straight away with minimal effort. The three ideas are to use a visualizer. I have visualizer just here just to talk over a screen like maybe using your iPad screen or to actually go ahead and use PowerPoint which I think is a really excellent solution for teachers. And spoiler alert I think the easiest solution for teachers is to use PowerPoint which is coming at the end of the video so make sure you stay tuned for that. This is how to use the visualizer. You can see I've got this really horrible shadow on here so this is with just the ordinary light. So a really important idea in how to use a visualizer is to make sure you have lots of light. You can see I've got this really harsh light here. So the more light the more light the better. So it might look okay while you're doing it but if you film with a visualizer with not enough light it will look really poor when you actually export that video. The easiest way to make sure you do have enough light is to work by a large window so you have plenty of diffuse natural light. Visualizer is a camera like any other camera and if there's not enough light it has to apply gain and then you get noise and noisy images don't look as good. You want to kind of avoid those kind of harsh shadows on your visualizer. So use things like props or images that you can actually print out to make it a bit more visually appealing. One of the best examples of using this kind of top-down shot for educational videos I think is A-Level Physics Online and Lewis uses Lego for example to represent different atomic particles. Like this would be a deuterium particle and that's where my Lego gorilla comes from for my logo. He even goes as far as to use a recognizable set of pens that students know when they're seeing this kind of look they are seeing Lewis's videos they're seeing physics online videos and it gives it a really consistent look. But it is really important to avoid the blank page and avoid us spending ages watching you write stuff out. If you have one then talking over a screen on something like an iPad or any tablet is a really good way to actually make an educational video. Try and find the pen that actually goes with whatever tablet it is that you're using. There are loads of free screen recording apps that you can use just try out and see what works for yours probably the best one that you have to pay a lot of money for is Explain Everything. Primrose Kitton has used this extensively and has made a massive success mostly and certainly initially of just using Explain Everything on her iPad to do explainer videos. Same rules apply don't start with a blank screen use those PowerPoint skills to make it visually appealing to make it your own style to make it your own video. Don't just explain over a blank screen as you talk at your normal pace as you think through whatever it is you're trying to explain. So I've recorded this entire section just within PowerPoint. This is how to make a video entirely within PowerPoint and this will be the easiest way for a teacher to make an educational video. All you have to do is to record the PowerPoint slideshow just as you would in the classroom so you use the slideshow record slideshow option there. Do it exactly as you would in the classroom talk as you would in the classroom talk to the microphone which is probably up there by the webcam. The record button is in the top left of the screen and in the bottom right there is a mic symbol make sure the mic is on. You can have the webcam on or off it's entirely up to you and you can move that video around or delete that video later and still keep the narration. Essentially it's recording the timings of you moving the slides on and the timings of you stopping and starting any animations. You can even use the pen annotations and it will play the annotations over just as you made them or any animations that you put in the PowerPoint just as you normally would. This is the screen that you see as you are recording the video. You can stop and you can re-record just that slide if you like or you can start the whole thing again. The advantages of using this as a teacher are that you probably have a lot of PowerPoints that you already have and you're using your lessons that you could just record. You're probably quite used to editing PowerPoint so you probably don't have to learn a whole lot of new skills to actually make a very good educational video on PowerPoint and you'll be used to the way the menus and everything works. You can practice and record each slide as many times as you like and you can add in other slides to the video at any point and it doesn't delete the other recordings on the other slides. So it's like a really really simple and straightforward video editor that you already probably know how to use. Just remember that there is a slight delay as you move a slide on so it might be the best thing to do just to actually record each slide individually. The last thing to do is to click file and export. You export, you click create a video, you want to use the full HD settings and then you click use recorded timings and narrations. You can even preview the whole thing and you can go back and make any changes if you weren't happy with your explanation. It will then save it as a video to your hard drive that you can upload to wherever you're sharing your videos. If you are looking for a bit more of a pro look then I will do a video a bit later on how you can actually make a YouTube channel and how you can get a bit more of a high production value. But this video is just about getting that flow right and getting a video that you can be really satisfied and that your students will learn from. And one of the most important replies to my tweet was this one which is actually just a really nice point that it's a really enjoyable experience to make videos. So whatever you're doing relax and just try and enjoy it. The video will be better and it will come across more if you do actually enjoy what you're doing. There will be technical issues in making even the simplest educational video but try to persevere and try to learn from it and most importantly try to enjoy it. You will have different issues to other people making videos and you will find solutions just by keeping working on it and keeping trying to improve. If you do get the bug like I did and you want to go on and make your own YouTube channel or improve the way you do it then I'll make some follow up videos with a bit more expert kind of solutions that you might want to try out. Thanks very much for watching. And if you want to get started straight away here's what Lewis has put out and Primrose has done a video also on how to teach on YouTube. And remember it doesn't have to be perfect these videos. It's just actually really nice for your kids to hear the voice of their own teacher. Kids do like hearing the voice of their own teacher and they will be nice for you. And just have a look at these comments about how much teachers have enjoyed making videos and how much they've learned from it as well. Thanks so much for watching.