Over the summer as we were getting ready for yet another term of remote teaching, we recorded a video on recording and editing lecture videos which we did not get to publish until now. We thought it is better late than never and are publishing it now.
Instructors can consider to use video editing techniques to improve their pre-recorded lectures, and this is why we had asynchronous classes in mind when writing this post.
Pros and Cons of asynchronous lectures
Pre-recording provides instructors with greater control on the content and on the delivery of their lectures. In light of this greater control, asynchronous lectures have a strong potential that, in our experience, video editing techniques allow to fully reach. However, pre-recording and editing video lectures comes at some costs. Here, we summarized what we believe are the pros and cons of pre-recording and editing video lectures.
Pros
The instructor can use techniques such as trimming out mistakes, unnecessary pauses or fillers and including timestamps in the video to make the lecture more effective, reducing students’ ``watching time” while increasing its efficacy
Adding titles, transitions, overlays can be used to emphasize some concepts and to make a lecture more enjoyable to watch
The countless effects that can be obtained with editing allow the instructor to be much more creative in the design of the lecture
Cons
Recording and editing a video requires lots of time
Pre-recording a lecture reduces the interaction with students
While instructors can do their best at pre-empting students’ questions, in the asynchronous context they miss good unpredicted questions that students may have asked had the lesson be taught synchronously
Keywords
There is a specific vocabulary used in video editing. Having these keywords in your back pocket might be of use while searching for help online.
Basic Editing:
| Keyword | Description |
|---|---|
| Trimming | Removing (cutting) the beginning or ending of a clip |
| Splitting | Breaking a single clip into two or more clips |
| Screensharing | Recording your computer screen |
| Video Transitions | Cut, dissolve, fade in/out, etc. |
Adding layers/features over a video:
| Keyword | Description |
|---|---|
| Overlay | Add sound/images/video “on top of” a clip. Ex: text, title, sound effect, watermark, blur, … |
| Picture-in-picture | Place and image or play a video in a small window above the main video |
| Watermark | An image, logo, or text typically used to protect video content from illegal use and distribution |
| Thumbnail | A small image/video that exemplifies larger content |
| Overlay Greenscreen Video | “Putting yourself in your slides” |
| Lightboard / “learning glass” | Glass board filled with light. You will appear in the video and your writing will glow in front of you. |
These lists represent some of the jargon that will be most useful to you as you begin the process of video editing.