In my role as an Instructional Designer, I often get asked by faculty questions like: “How do I go about recording my lectures?” or “Can I record my PowerPoint slides and put them in my hybrid or online course?”

The simple answer, I’m happy to tell them, is “Yes!” This is a great way to provide an alternative to your in-class lectures and get you one step closer to moving toward a flipped format or a blended or online course should you choose to go there. Pre-recorded video content is becoming more common-place in higher education and for good reason. First, students can watch your lectures outside of class (flipped classroom model), regaining valuable class time for group problem-solving and team-work. Students can re-watch videos, pausing and rewinding for comprehension and review. And, all learners can benefit from having course materials that support multiple means of representation.

But knowing what to do and how to do it, are two different things completely (as my father would famously remind me).  In this article and the next, I would like to offer some basic video production tips and tricks as a starting point for creating the kind of video presentations you can be proud of.

Creating video content for course instruction and assignments generally involves these four stages (in order):

1. Recording,
2. Editing,
3. Hosting, and
4. Sharing

The good news is that St. Thomas faculty and students have several tools and resources available to them for creating and sharing quality video content for academic purposes (reference the table below). Most of these are easily accessed and described in more detail, on One.StThomas. Each tool has its own methods and capabilities, although there’s a surprising amount of overlap too.

To identify which tool or method may be best for the video content you want to produce, start by asking yourself these questions:

• Do I need to display any material visually, or will students just need to see me?
• What format is the material in that I need to display?  PowerPoint slides? Images or  Documents? Websites? Software application?
• Will this be a one-way communication from me to my students, or do I want students to respond as they pause and comment directly in the video? (yeah, that’s a thing)
• Do I need a controlled environment for the best quality sound and lighting?
• Do I need to demonstrate some action or use props?
• How will the students access and see the final presentation?

While this article focuses on basic video production tools, it should be noted that St. Thomas has a full-service video production studio in the basement of OEC. The ITS/STELAR team can assist with any high-level production needs beyond the scope of what’s covered here. It may also help to consult with a STELAR Instructional Designer who can guide you through the process and, based on your specific instructional needs, point you to specific tools and solutions.

Here’s a break-down comparing five basic video recording tools and methods available at St. Thomas.

Video Production Tools (Chart)

With a little planning and creativity, the tools in the chart above can provide you with everything you need to successfully create, edit, host, and share videos for course content and interaction.

In the next article, I’ll offer some best practices for getting the most out of your video and audio recording, so your students get the most out of learning by watching them.

This post was written by Michael Wilder, an Instructional Designer for the St. Thomas E-Learning and Research (STELAR) Center at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn. To learn more about this topic, please visit our website at www.stthomas.edu/stelar or email us at stelar@stthomas.edu.

Virtual reality has been around for about two years now, and new educational applications are emerging every day. In the first image below, Dr. Heather Shirey’s art history class use the ClassVR system to view a 360-degree image of the Temple of Palmyra, in Syria (bottom image), giving students the illusion of standing in the middle of the temple. These detailed, 3-dimensional images become particularly precious as this historical site has been significantly and intentionally damaged by warfare in recent years. The ClassVR system is a group of connected virtual reality goggles that can be controlled from a central location, allowing a professor to send images to all headsets at once, create playlists of related subjects, upload their own 360-degree photos or allow students to explore on their own. When it’s time to leave virtual reality, they can all be shut down at once, too! If you are interested in exploring ClassVR for your own project, come talk to us in STELAR!

ClassVR in Art History

Temple of Bel, Palmyra

“Temple of Bel, Palmyra 15.jpg” by Bernard Gagnon (Own work) is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

This post was written by Eric Tornoe, Associate Director of Research Computing for the St. Thomas E-Learning and Research (STELAR) Center at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn. To learn more about this topic, please visit our website at www.stthomas.edu/stelar or email us at stelar@stthomas.edu.

When most people hear about Qualtrics, they immediately think of standard surveys: fill-in-the-blank questions, multiple-choice questions, perhaps long-form essay/response questions. You know, basic survey stuff – and that’s to be expected! Qualtrics was born out of a desire to serve the needs of academic research: data collection and analysis. The purpose of this series is to take you beyond those basic survey features and explore some of the unique and powerful uses of the Qualtrics platform. During the course of this series, we will demonstrate features such as branches, variables, scoring, authentication, actions, data reporting and analytics, and much more.

Branching

One of the most powerful features of Qualtrics is its ability to introduce branching logic. Branches allow the project designer to tailor the respondent experience based on various aspects. For instance, an answer to a specific question might lead the respondent to a whole series of questions that are not presented to others who did not select that answer. Branches also allow projects to do special math operations, create variables to be used in other parts of the project, and customize feedback or end-of-survey experiences, just to name a few. Branches come in two forms. The simplest form is called display logic, which is when you tell an individual question “Display this question ONLY if these criteria are met.” That criteria could be a specific choice selected in another question or a combination of choices selected (or not selected) in a range of questions.

The more powerful form of branching is represented in the Survey Flow, where you define the flow or experience of a respondent as they move through question blocks. Utilizing this form of branching, you are able to create wholly customized, often personalized, experiences through the project.

One example of the use of branching is a “choose-your-own-adventure” project. In this example, the participant is trying to find the quickest route from New York to Sydney based on various criteria (jobs, items, choices, etc). There is a random element introduced at the beginning where the participant is assigned a role that includes specific items to be carried along with them. This project uses branches extensively to define what is presented to the participant based on the choices they make throughout. In some cases, the path leads them all the way to London. In other cases, they are stranded and their voyage fails.

Screen recording of Incredible Race example

Our second example is a part of capturing data variables (which Qualtrics refers to as Embedded Data) for use elsewhere in the project. In this example, participants were asked to rate their institutional plans for exploring changes to various parts of their IT infrastructure and the timeline for those evaluations. Branches were used to capture those pieces of data to be used at the very end of the project where their individual institutional timeline is presented utilizing a Javascript timeline library (a feature we will discuss in a future article)

Screen recording of the Timeline example

Our final branching example comes from a self-assessment project. Students were asked to rate their relative comfort with various technologies and other personal learning skills. Based on their responses, branching was leveraged to provide feedback and suggest further reading, to both help students sift through a large amount of training material as well as provide a more personalized user experience.

Screen recording of the self-assessment example

Branching is a very powerful tool that serves as the basis for other advanced features. In our next article, we will discuss how Branches and variables, which Qualtrics refers to as Embedded Data, can be used to build even more personalized and innovative experiences.

VoiceThread– the online discussion platform that incorporates voice, video, and images, continues to improve their cloud-based interface. Many faculty and students at the University of St. Thomas use VoiceThread as a way to increase engagement and social presence in online learning.

Here are two new features that will make using VoiceThread even easier and more accessible:

Interactive Video Commenting

Now you can “insert your comment directly into the video’s timeline while also interacting with it dynamically as you record,” according to VoiceThread.   Here’s how it works:

Stop the playback of any video playing in VoiceThread. Click the + button to start recording your comment. You can ask questions about a particular thing right within the video, or describe and draw directly on a certain frame within the video.  You can even move the video’s timeline and comment along the way.  Any movements you make (scrubbing, annotating) while making your comments are recorded right along with your comments so when others view your comments, they see how you are interacting with the video.

Use this feature when you need to stop and ask questions at a specific time in the video. You can also use it to point out elements of a diagram or describe a stop-motion happening in the video.

Closed Captioning of all Comments

Beginning in March, all comments that professors and students make will be closed captioned for accessibility.

This will happen automatically behind the scenes and will appear directly on the comment after processing. To view the captions, viewers need to turn on Closed Captions during playback from the CC menu in the upper-right. With this update, there will be no more requesting that VoiceThreads be sent off for captioning or waiting several days for the captions to appear. While captions are machine processed immediately and probably won’t be 100% accurate, you now have the ability to edit those captions anytime you want.

Simply click the “CC” icon on the individual caption and then click Edit Captions to correct the machine captions.

To find more exciting features being developed by VoiceThread, check out the VoiceThread Roadmap.

This post was written by Michael Wilder, an Instructional Designer for the St. Thomas E-Learning and Research (STELAR) Center at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn. To learn more about this topic, please visit our website at www.stthomas.edu/stelar or email us at stelar@stthomas.edu.