Presenting your content using a video can involve creating a simple screencast of a powerpoint, adding audio in the form of music, automated or real speech, with or without a talking head, through to a recording of a lecture in a recording room or out on location. You might use a video camera, or simply a smartphone or tablet. The finished product might reside on your institution’s server or on a private or public YouTube channel. Here are some useful programs and platforms that can be used.

Loom – makes it ridiculously easy and fun to make videos (talking head and/or screencast). Add the browser extension to Chrome then simply click the icon to start recording (more or less – there are a few setup questions but that’s the gist of it). You can move the round talking head around and change its size as you speak. Once you are finished, the video is instantly available for editing or downloading as an MP4. The built-in editing tools are intuitive and allow you to top and tail the video, as well as remove chunks within.  Its free and I can’t find any talk of upload limits (dosen’t mean there aren’t any .. I just can’t find them). Regardless – you could just download and host them yourself. Heck I can’t even see any branding on the finished product! Here’s my quick demo.

Screencast-O-Matic – online/offline tool for screencasting or webcam recording. Small watermark, up to 15 minutes of recording time, then upload to YouTube or download an MP4.

Adobe Spark allows you to quickly create social media posts, webpages and videos and has a free online option. Richard Byrne explains the basics.

MySimpleShow – a free online tool that helps you to develop ‘explainer’ videos by starting with a guided storyboard. Choose from various professional, educational or personal templates.