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…
Video editors may be feature-packed or free – but usually not both. Or so I thought – til I found HitFilm Express. I have pretty limited know-how in this area but I’m able to use this straight out of the box to make basic edits and judging by the feedback around the web, it can do very schmick things as well. Well worth disabling your ad blocker for – you’ll need to do this to access the desktop download –…
GoConqr – Online curation of resources such as images and videos for content, including a repository for user-created resources which may be kept behind an interest group wall. ClassHook – Online curation of popular (some of them anyway) videos classified according to the academic principles they demonstrate. Great for engagement and flipped classrooms.
Annotated bibliographies are things of beauty for anyone undertaking scholarly works. The Science of Learning – brought to you by the Deans for Impact, this short fact-filled document provides not only a summary of recent (to 2015) research in cognitive science but also packages it around six key questions all educators will find useful. They even pooh pooh some common misconceptions about how students learn and think, including the oft-cited ‘students have different learning styles’ trope. Should you add a talking head…
Kaizena – provide voice feedback to students via google docs, sheets or slides. Free 🙂
Pixabay – Free to use any way you like, with no acknowledgement required. Photos are contributed by users and as such, you are relying on their confirmation that the images are theirs to share (although the site moderator reviews all contributions). Pexel seems to operate similarly and also turns up a lot of images from pixabay. Emojipedia – emojis evolved from the text-based pictures created by users such as a colon : plus a right-hand parenthesis ) to represent a smiley face :)….
Animator – create unlimited 2 minute animations for free. Drag and drop, easy to use. You can also upload your own characters. Mysimpleshow – free for limited function but still fab – fill in the storyboard template, edit the visualisations (upload your own images if you want), and Mysimpleshow will produce a (robotically) narrated animation complete with sweeping hand transition. The novelty of the presentation type will wear off quickly but fantastic for limited use. Or upgrade for more choice. Moovly – Online…
Whilst random decorative images can add to the students’ cognitive load and are not recommended, relevant graphics have been shown to improve learner engagement with materials. Zygomatic produces several tools that are all incredibly simple to use, useful, free, and online: Typography Editor – Create your own designs with backgrounds (or upload your own), badges, borders, rulers, frames, corners, and other ornaments; add text in a variety of fonts with backdrops and shadows. For PC or mobile interface. Image can be…
Free music archive – click the song title to find more info about the license information for a given track.
For many reasons it is very useful to either caption your video or provide a written transcript of what is being said, expanding your audience by making the material much more accessible for students who may be hearing impaired, or watching the video with the sound turned down, when out and about on mobile devices where for whatever reason they don’t want to have earphones in. Captioning takes time and may not always be appropriate. For instance, it is not helpful for…