Creating Whiteboard Style Videos with Quizzes

Origin

Centre for Applied Anatomy

Tools used

Contact

Background

A lecturer in the Centre for Applied Anatomy contacted the Digital Education Office enquiring how she might create ‘whiteboard’ style video content. She was aware that time constraints meant she could not fit everything she thought necessary into lecture and lab time, so was looking for a way to supplement this while enhancing the students' experience. She wanted to create videos for students to watch prior to lecture/lab time, introducing concepts while saving time. She had not made video content previously, so was keen to find out how to approach the task and what sort of equipment would be needed.

Objectives for the Digital Education Office

With the lecturer's self-confessed inexperience in creating media, we needed to gauge how confident she was in terms of using technology and then identify suitable tools and any training/support that might be needed.

What was done

The DEO worked through the lecturer's initial ideas via email and phone calls. Once we had understood what she was hoping to achieve and got a sense of how confident she was in terms of using technology, we arranged to meet with her in person. We loaned her a Surface Pro tablet PC with pen, installed with Camtasia 9 and the Microsoft Whiteboard app (free from the MS Store, available within Windows 10).

During the initial meeting, we demonstrated the basic capture and editing workflows of Camtasia. We also pointed the lecturer in the direction of the Camtasia support videos and documentation. After the meeting, we fielded a few questions from her via email and phone call, for example how to render the final videos and how to upload/make them available within Blackboard through the Re/Play system.

Towards the end of the creation period, the lecturer booked onto the Digital Education Office’s Video in Teaching and Learning workshop, which helped to inform some of the narrative and contextual choices she made in the finished videos. This workshop also gave her the idea to embed simple quizzes into the videos to help check students' understanding of the concepts introduced. With minimal support from the DEO, she was able to implement the quizzing functionality into appropriate videos.

Issues and Considerations

  • A small learning curve getting to grips with hardware, software and workflow processes.
  • Instead of just learning how to use a particular application or tool, it consider developing wider skills around creating and using online content. Some of our DEO workshops might help you.
  • Planning and storyboarding is advisable to help identify what works visually and what doesn't.
  • Creating videos, adding interactivity, and then deploying them into digital spaces can be time-consuming initially.