Research has shown that creating a faculty presence can greatly enhance the learning experience in any course. The use of video and multimedia is an excellent way for instructors to build a faculty presence and increase student engagement. To that end, Instructional Technology and Design Services (ITDS) offers support for the integration of video and multimedia into Montclair State University courses. The ITDS Team can assist faculty in the creation of high-quality video in our professional studio and editing facilities.
If you are looking for assistance in producing your next video, reach out for a 1-on-1 consultation. You will receive tips and tricks on how to make your videos more engaging and how to use Panopto to create them. Additionally, ITDS offers Creating DIY Multimedia to Enhance Learning, a 4-week online, asynchronous course that provides faculty with the training needed to produce quality academic media content from the comfort of your home or office.
A simple introduction video is a great starting point. It gives the instructor a chance to briefly introduce who they are, what the course is about and what students can expect throughout the term. With a short video of 1-2 minutes, instructors can provide a visual prologue to the course, infusing their personality, much like the first day of class in a traditional face-to-face setting.
When creating lecture videos, it is important to plan the content ahead of time and to make sure the material is organized in a clear and logical manner. Our multimedia specialists employ best practices to capture well-lit video and clear audio to ensure that the content is engaging and easy to follow. Slides, imagery, stock footage, diagrams, etc. can be added to videos in post-production to reinforce key points and keep students absorbed in the content.
A Lightboard, also known as learning glass, is a writable glass board, most commonly used for recording video lectures. Lightboards function exactly as chalkboards or whiteboards, except lightboards allow the instructor to face the camera while writing. They are also equipped with LED lights to illuminate your work, which is drawn with neon markers. Lightboards provide an innovative and intuitive way to engage your students with video.
Introductory Video
Additional Lightboard Examples
Do you have someone you would like to interview to enhance the content of your course? We can record your interview as a two person set up or we can just feature the person of interest. We can also edit the interview to only include the key points you need or in a casual, conversational format. Interviews can be recorded in our studio or at another location on campus.
Animation is a great way to explain a concept visually. Using simple animations can make course material that is normally hard to understand easier to learn. Research shows that animation can enhance learning, but is not ideal in all cases. Some concepts are enhanced by static images. We can help in deciding what works best, animation or high res images.
Burch, B. (2018). Video Length in Online Courses: What the Research Says, Research and Best Practices, Quality Matters, retrieved from: https://www.qualitymatters.org/qa-resources/resource-center/articles-resources, 2018.
“Welcome videos allow instructors to present their personality, share their passion for the subject matter, inform students of their experience with the material, and outline expectations.”
Strategize videos to tie directly to course assignments and/or assessment
Advise faculty members to use conversational language in production
Encourage faculty to use humor and draw on past experiences
Add audio/visual elements to the video that supplement the content
Videos should not convey information that students could just read as text
Produce high-quality videos (professional sound, lighting, and graphics are very important)
Keep a four-minute length as a design consideration, especially when producing longer-form content lectures that can be broken up into shorter segments
Different kinds of animations can enhance learning depending on what you are teaching. Depending on what you are teaching also determines what kinds of animations to use.
