Tips For Making Video Lessons

Millions of online users earn money with video recordings. And the educational videos are no exception! People create video lectures, interviews, book reviews, lifehacks, to name just a few. Some folks use YouTube channels for uploading online video lessons, others sell online courses and masterclasses on eLearning platforms. This can become a more effective solution since online learning platforms provide instructors with lots of additional resources and freebies for better promotion of their online courses.

Newest statistical research indicates that the popularity of educational videos just keeps increasing:

• As the Edudemic’s reports stated – there is about 70% of teachers strongly believe that lessons presented in the video format are very effective for educating.
• Near 50% of teachers confessed that they’ve created at least one video lesson during their teaching career.
• Rapidly-growing eLearning marketplaces like CreativeLive, Skillshare, Grinfer, Udemy, Craftsy are largely video-based.

Yes, it is a proven fact that you can effectively teach and make money with video lessons. And you can make really good money by selling your educational content online on educational platforms. One of the good examples is one of the best-selling online instructors, Rob Percival. This guy already made millions and educated thousands of people on web development and coding. His video lessons have been so popular that he even built his own school called Codestars.

So, what does it take to make a video lesson? In this blog post, let’s cover some basic steps you can take to start making educational videos.

What formats and trends are out there for video lessons

Elearning trends are now so much in the spotlight. A big part of it is the global pandemic and unfortunate outcomes we have now because of it. People are getting more aware of the benefits Elearning has to offer. Video lessons proved themselves effective and efficient in gaining knowledge. There are many types of formats used for making videos for eLearning in the present time, like:

• Content–rich courses. Content is appreciated everywhere and learners appreciate those online learning platforms where content is a primary key and focus point in online courses.
• AI–based learning. AI without a doubt is the future of every learning management system. If you start using it with AR and VR based content, it can become a blessing to everybody who takes classes online.
• Knowledge first. There is a flaw in “traditional” learning that there can not be proper learning of a particular course without proper eligibility and motivation. If someone has a passion for one skill or subject, then no one should stop them. In 2020 this can be the trend to adopt individual skills learning in online training software.

Now, learn what two major trends are used for video lessons:

• Gamification
• Personalization

Let’s talk a little bit more in detail about these trends.

Gamification describes the use of games such as quizzes in lessons to engage students. Gamification promotes active learning as students are actively engaging with the learning content. Rather than passively absorbing information through reading or listening to a teacher. Active learning improves student retention rates, academic performance, and efficiency of future learning. Meaning that online teachers all over the world are beginning to implement it into their teaching practices.

Gamification can make eLearning more engaging as key concepts and important information is presented to the students in a new, innovative, exciting way. Gamification decreases resistance to the actual process of learning with curiosity.

Personalization refers to the tailoring of online classes to accommodate the needs of each individual student. This applies to the modern styles of online teaching like 1-1 live tutoring calls. These are real-time 1-1 classes that are offered on a few online learning platforms such as Grinfer – when students arrange a live tutoring call with a teacher. They can ask any questions that they may have, initiate discussions with the teacher, and also inform them of any areas that they find difficult.

With this information and the progress monitoring that the teacher can conduct, the teacher can plan any future lessons to tackle the areas in which the student needs improvement. Whilst also including some interesting information about the areas of the subject that the student is interested in. Personalization can increase academic achievement and student satisfaction, as well as making eLearning more engaging.

Some important questions to ask prior to making video lessons

Videos have become the most preferred formats of content consumers around the globe. Especially over the past decade and a half due to the advanced rise of technologies. The video format is able to engage all age groups and deliver the learning content in the most effective way. Learning videos offer an interesting approach for absorbing and digesting information to the viewer. Moreover, the retention rates are higher, too (compared to traditional formats).

However, ask yourself these four important questions before you start investing your time and efforts in making eLearning videos. Also, pick through a few handy hints essential for making video lessons:

Short Videos or Bite-Sized Videos?

Short videos for eLearning are more appropriate because learners don’t want to spend too much time on lengthy eLearning activities. This is why eLearning videos should contain digestible chunks of information that can be easily absorbed. This makes retention simpler.

Should I Make Responsive Videos?

Responsiveness is one of the most vital factors when it comes to videos. It is important to deliver good content across all the devices that your learners use, including mobile phones. Videos for learning should be compressed and optimized for mobile streaming. That way learners can watch any videos that they are interested in anytime and from any location (even if the Internet is slow).

Do I Need Captions For My Video Lessons?

There may be cases where the learners may not be able to turn the sound on. In this case, captions are a good way to deliver all the info to the viewer. With nice subtitles, they’ll still get all the content that you’ve talked about. This option definitely contributes to greater accessibility of the content making video lectures much more user-friendly. Having captions can improve learners’ engagement and boost their skills development.

Do I Need To Make My Video Lectures Interactive?

Yes, educational videos can be interactive and this style is one of the most effective for learning. Interactive videos enable learner’s participation to grow, engaging them by stimulating intellectually. This style delivers entertaining and immersive learning experiences.

Helpful recording software for mastering video lessons

No matter what video editing software you’ve picked, make sure that it doesn’t detract from the educational experience itself. Basically, think about whether you’d wish to work with something complicated, somewhat complicated, somewhat simple, or super easy. There are many different apps and programs designed for mastering videos for any level of recording experience.

Are you a newbie? Stick to basic components and keep all the complicated ones back to themselves. Allow yourself to focus on your content. There is always a chance that your content might seem somewhat complicated to some people or hard to understand. Start with the software which has a simple interface and easy to work with. Along the way, don’t forget to focus on the actual content of video lessons that you make and keep it relevant. So, let’s roll.

If the only hardware you use at the moment is a webcam, then the BlueBerry flashback express program can help you to record nice quality videos and make them like a pro. With this software, you will be able to capture your screen through a webcam. Some other useful tools it provides are editing and making nice-looking video lessons. And all this is possible in a couple of clicks. This software has a pretty simple interface that is easily understandable. This software even lets you determine what particular spot of the screen you will capture. You can add audio (there is a player that will let you review frame-by-frame recordings) and web activities later to any of the videos. Oh, yes, scheduling recordings is very helpful just for staying up-to-date with online events.

CamStudio software was designed for creating AVI videos. It provides an option of adding captions to videos, audio recordings with hidden, default, or highlighted cursor options (should be set up before the process of recording). Find text annotations and call out inserts because these are also very useful. Needless to say, there are even more features that let you control frame rates, compression, time-lapse, etc. There are no editing capabilities. A big bummer.

Want to see your screen recordings in high resolution? Then try Ezvid and play with it by adding titles, descriptions, keywords, other stuff like that. Video, as well as audio recordings, can reach up to 45 min in duration. This software provides editing capabilities, speed control, allows for splitting, inserting text and audio content, etc.  Heck, it will even let you do drawings on the screen. Sounds pretty awesome.

A nice screen recorder for Windows PC is the iSpring software which has a useful set of tools that work very well for editing vids. However, it will let you save vids only in WMV format, so keep that in mind.

Want to record high-quality vids with minimal effort? Try Camstasia! This software also imports vids from elsewhere with an option for later editing.

Another useful screencast software (compatible with almost any OS) is called Krut. It does need Java to work though. This tool has three main controls – recording, snap for still images, an arrow button (for altering borders). This tool is rather minimalistic. You won’t see anything too complicated there. But be sure, it is just as powerful as any other program designed for the same purpose. Other useful capabilities of this software are timer-controlled recordings and streaming video recordings (you can record audio as well).

Some tips on  making engaging and inspiring video lessons

What aspects worth paying attention to? Check it out below:

Emotion. Without a doubt, feelings and emotions are crucial factors for any creative process. When you make video lessons, think about the emotional impact that they are going to have on people. Videos are supposed to make users feel, happy, sad, angry, joyful, fearful, disgust, surprise, trusting, or anticipation. Touching on these emotions will be the driving force behind a person’s motivation to watch more.

Relevance. A video lesson has to be relevant to the audience you speak to. Otherwise, they won’t feel like spreading the word about it to other learning peers. Word of mouth is something that drives more followers in. Pretty important, huh?. Video lessons need to make an impression on people and make them feel like they finally found information which they’ve been looking for a while. Odds are that your viewers will want other people to know about your educational content and educational message. The important question to always ask with relevance is “what is the message”.

Uniqueness. One of the greatest problems with educational content is the volume of similar content that is regenerated or re-used from other accounts. Content which is completely new and fresh will usually do far better than that which has already completed the eLearning circuit.

Media Quality. Some people believe the quality factor is the most crucial one for making video lessons. In actuality, it’s not as significant as you might think. Unless you sell artworks or graphic design services, the media quality of video lectures yields to many other important factors. Media quality is important, however, because, if all the factors above have been covered, then this would be the final icing on the video post-production cake.

Conclusion

Having online lessons in video format, for sure, is the smartest and highly motivational way of getting engagement and providing inspiration in eLearning. All interactive online learning platforms use video format now for building eLearning courses. Video lessons are great and very effective in many ways, especially if you face the challenge to educate while using fewer texts and providing more personal explanations.

In eLearning, you can use new influencers and popular teachers to put their interactive interaction videos to attract new people to your platform. Also, it provides an opportunity to enhance the experience of your viewers by using all these futuristic high-tech learning tools we have available today. For example, AI-based tools have been developed for providing assistance to virtual tutors and for enhancing the experience of in-class interactions. 

Anyways, the more advanced technologies we have available, the more effective online learning becomes. If you haven’t tried the eLearning format yet, go to the Grinfer learning platform and pick any online course that you like! Or join the Grinfer’s community of online instructors! Make money with online courses and 1-1 consultations on Grinfer today!

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