Educational videos come in different shapes: step-by-step guides, lecture recordings, course navigations, project feedback, topic previews, and others. Their main advantages include flexibility, constant improvement of content, low cost, and a chance to engage students from all corners of the world. Creating such videos is a great way to share your knowledge, gain new skills, make friends, and earn money. Especially now when the shift towards remote learning continues. However, it is not easy to create professional videos with millions of views. In this article, we will cover the most common mistakes to avoid and tips to follow.

Recording a video

1. Create a storyboard

Web education has been on the rise and millions of users worldwide create different types of videos every day. But do you know what differs successful educators? They have a storyboard for every video. It is a plan of the future content that includes information about the subject, location setting, situation of the camera, shot type, movements, number of participants, and other issues. The more detailed you are, the fewer problems and surprises you are going to face in the process.

2. Write the script

It doesn’t matter whether you want to make a film or a short video clip: you need to create a script. Here are a few things to remember:

• Make your introduction engaging by inserting a quote, joke, or statistics
• Act natural and be yourself
• Concentrate on the key points
• Use examples
• Thank viewers for watching the video

When the script is written, read it aloud to make sure that it sounds smooth and interesting.

3. Engage the audience

While many users turn to video streaming due to the highest engagement rate, educational videos can also be rewarding if approached correctly.  There are many ways how you can make your videos interesting. First of all, you should transmit your passion to the subject. Cold and impersonal videos won’t gain loyal viewers. You can also insert quizzes, questions, and prizes for leaving comments under the video. Give viewers a sense of community and they will gladly return to you over and over again.

4. Choose the right video length

The common rule of educational content says – the shorter, the better. This means that your videos should be straight to the point and brief. Read the requirements of the chosen educational platform and if else is not stated, stick to 10 – 20 minutes length. The videos should be easy to digest and not overloaded with information. If the viewers decide to download from YouTube or another website, the last thing they want is to spend hours waiting for the file.

5. Use a green screen

Some video creators are afraid of using green screens because they think it is difficult and time-consuming. Well, it may be at first but has a wide range of advantages. With a green screen, you can record videos on literally any background, hide imperfections of your home, and contribute to branding. It also reduces time spent on preparing the surroundings and is extremely flexible and portable. An irreplaceable element for creators of educational videos!

6. Invest in good equipment

A professional video is a must if you want to occupy firm positions in the virtual educational arena. That is why you need to spend some money on a quality vlogger camera, microphone, headsets, and other equipment. And don’t forget about good lighting which is one of the most important elements of great videos. The good news is that if you are a student or a teacher, Apple Education Store may give significant discounts.  And, if you do have the budget, you can allow one of the top Portland video production companies to worry about equipment while you focus on content creation.”

7. Use professional editing tools

Video editing is a crucial element of the process. It makes your educational content interesting, good-looking, and free from imperfections. With the help of an animation maker you can make videos more engaging and by using screencasting tools – insert what is happening on your computer. Beginners should consider a free video editor, while experienced users can invest in a paid one. The most popular editing tools are FlexClip, Wirewax, FlashBack, Animoto, Filmora, Wideo, and Clipchamp.

8. Compress videos

Without video compression, loading time can reach days. Exhausting, right? That is why you should use video compression software to reduce the loading time and minimize buffering for the viewers. It allows compressing videos by half without harming the quality and choosing almost any format. This means that your video can be played on any website and software.

9. Pick the right platform

Depending on your niche and target audience, the choice of the platform to publish videos may vary. Some of them are free, while others – paid. There are also websites that have both free and premium packages. The most popular platforms for educational videos are YouTube, Facebook, Metacafe, Break, Vimeo, Dailymotion, Flickr, and Veoh. We recommend choosing several websites and social media networks to attract as many users as possible.

      10. Check user engagement

Your work doesn’t stop when the video is uploaded. The next step should include analytics, i.e. collecting data on how the audience watches your videos, what they like and don’t like. The most visual indicators are total plays, play rate, and average engagement. You can use free analytical programs by Google or invest in paid ones. All of them work well and give lots of valuable insights on the things that should be improved in the future.

Learning in progress

Concluding thoughts…

Now you know that creating educational videos requires a thoughtful and step-by-step approach. First, invest in a vlogger camera or another equipment of your choice, then download iMovie and other tools for creating great videos. Don’t forget about writing an engaging script and inserting images, animation, and other elements into the content. If you lack inspiration, research other online educators and you will surely find fresh ideas to get started.

My experience with using iPads in the classroom has been positive.  They can be introduced relatively seamlessly into most lessons across the curriculum, and there are so many apps to choose from, that you’re sure to find one to suit the needs of you or your students.  That being said, I have put together a list of my all time favourite apps for use both at home and at school:

Big Cat Collins books – young readers enjoy learning to read with this app, as they can interact with the pictures, and the words are highlighted as the voiceover reads the text.  The voiceover can also be switched off to allow the child to read at their own pace.  This app is only available in the UK App Store, so if you’re based in another country you may need to change the country of your App Store.

Book Creator – this is a brilliant app for supporting children in creating their own multimedia books, as it enables them to easily combine text, images and sounds.

Comic Life – provides a fun way for children to create comic strips using traditional templates.  Photographs can be inserted with various call outs, text boxes and speech bubbles.

iCardSort – more for use at home than at school, this app provides digital Post-it notes, which can help older learners to organise their ideas and revise learning.  As a student on a masters programme, this app helped me a lot to distil and plan key ideas for my essays.

Even Monsters Get Sick – this is a really engaging interactive story for young children.  They learn the basics of how to treat people who are unwell while improving their reading skills.

iWriteWords – one for younger children, this app helps with letter pronunciation, basic spellings and handwriting.  Easy and fun to use, this app quickly engages children.

iMovie – I use this app a lot with children to make educational videos.  It’s easy to learn and allows you to create your own video projects on the fly from scratch or create a movie trailer using a template.

Video project on the fly:

Video template:

Math Vs Zombies – in this app children have to quickly answer maths questions to defeat zombies before they can attack.  The game progresses through a number of levels and includes addition, subtraction and multiplication questions.

PDF Expert – having experimented with a few other PDF reader apps before this one, I can say that this one is hands down the best.  Great for storing planning documents and other lesson resources, I use this app more than any other app on the iPad.  This app makes it easy to annotate, organise and view documents as PDFs.

Percy Parker – this app sets each of the times-tables to catchy music and is a great way to engage children with learning their times-tables.

Planet Geo – my first graders would always want to play with this app.  It’s brilliant for developing children’s geographical knowledge, as it teaches them to identify different countries, cities, flags and World Heritage Sites.

Puppet Pals HD – children I have taught have loved this app.  It encourages children to develop their speaking and storytelling skills through the use of digital puppets.  It’s also an app that can be used by teachers to create child friendly video content.  I used this app to create a short video for school children (below) about the Copyright of images online.

SpellBoard – helps children to learn their weekly spellings.  All you need to do is enter the spellings and the app will generate customisable tests for you, which then stores a record of children’s progress.  You can also add pictures to the words as well as record words and sentences using your own voice.

Stop Motion – children can create stop motion animated movies quickly using this app. It’s simple to use, as you can copy, paste, delete and insert frames at any position.  One of my students from a Film Making Club, which I ran last year, used this app along with Windows Movie Maker to create the video below.

WordFoto – this app allows you to take a photograph and then add ten words, which are wrapped and morphed against the picture.  It’s a simple idea, which can be used for descriptive writing and poetry.

Concluding thoughs…

There are many other fantastic apps to choose from in the App Store, which can be put to good use both at school and at home.  As always with educational technology, the important thing is to ensure that the app is appropriate and engaging.  In my experience, children will quickly get to grips with most apps that you provide them with, and as a teacher, you can make use of a lot of these apps as part of your daily teaching practice.

Information Communication Technology (ICT) is an area that touches every subject.  As educators (whatever our specialism), we need to look at how we embed ICT into our daily pedagogy.  I’ve put together here some top tips with primary, secondary and tertiary students in mind:

1.  Get students blogging as a way to consolidate their learning. The fact that students have a potentially global audience for their blog entries means that most will spend more time refining their written work, which not only improves literacy but serves as a valuable tool for reflection.  It’s also a good opportunity to explore digital literacy with your students, helping them to understand the important concepts of e-safety, netiquette and effective search techniques online.

2.  Use word clouds to showcase key words.

A word cloud is just a collection of words that have been tiled together, as illustrated above. The most frequently used words are automatically made to appear larger by word cloud generators, which makes them a great tool for showcasing the learning outcomes of a lesson or analysing the key themes of a text.  Many great word cloud generators such as Wordle can be found online.

3.  Encourage collaboration through the use of Google Drive.

Google Documents for example, provides an ideal space for students to work together on group essays and research projects.  I provide here a review of Google Docs Documents:

4.  Promote Assessment for Learning by creating tests and quizzes for your students to complete online. My personal favourite is Google Forms – these can be embedded into students’ email.  It provides a quick and easy way to flag up any deficits in students’ knowledge and understanding, which can then be addressed in the follow up lesson.

5.  Use a good quality webcam on a stand as a cheap alternative to digital microscopes and visualisers.

As a former Year 6 (5th grade) teacher, I would often project students’ writing onto the whiteboard, and as a class we would up-level the work together.  This helps students to see what teachers or examiners are looking for when they mark a piece of work and is a great Assessment for Learning tool.  More recently, in my role as a 1st grade teacher, we’ve put our class webcam to good use by looking at mini-beasts the children have found in the playground!

6.  Use iMovie on iPads to get students creating video presentations of their learning. These can then be uploaded (private or unlisted) to a class YouTube channel. Not so long ago, if you wanted students to film, record, edit and annotate a video, multiple pieces of kit would be needed.  As well as being super portable, one of the best features of tablets is that they come with all the built-in devices necessary, including camera, microphone, keyboard, speakers and screen – not to mention the fantastic video editing software now available.

7.  The trailers provided on the iMovie app also serve as wonderful templates in which to create very short professional quality slideshow presentations. I have made many such videos for assemblies, parent workshops and training events.  These videos can be made extremely quickly and will easily engage an audience.

8.  Microsoft Word has a fantastic review tool. This enables you to annotate work students have sent you, providing comments and suggestions for improvement.  The student can then review these comments one by one and action them as appropriate.  That being said, it is important that you retain the original copy of students’ work, as annotations made will be deleted from the working version once they are accepted or rejected by the student.  This can be done by saving the work under a different name (e.g. Filename original).

9.  Search Engines are rarely used to their full potential by teachers and students. Google for example, can be your go to dictionary (just type ‘Define’), an efficient translator (try typing ‘happy in Spanish’), and the advanced search options provide many more possibilities such as allowing you to refine your search by reading level or file type.  If you’re looking for a mental maths starter on fractions let’s say, you may just be interested in search results that only show PowerPoints.

10.  Remember, with all of these top tips the focus should be the learning and not the technology (unless of course, the learning is about the technology itself). Outstanding use of ICT takes place when technologies are used transparently such that they blend seamlessly into the learning process, enabling students to become creative problem solvers.