Andrea Beukema

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Return to: ETAP 623 Fall 2014 Zhang | Andrea's Personal Page | Andrea's Mini Course

Topic/purpose

Educators are using audio and video technologies to create presentations, and share ideas, however, the quality of the final products varies widely. This course will look at simple ways to increase the quality of your video and audio productions, help you develop an understand of what “good” production values are, and how to optimize your work for clarity and presentation.

Needs Assessment Analysis of the Learner and Context Performance Objectives

Instructional Problem

Many educators are using technology, specifically video and audio, in their teaching yet few have formal training in the production of media. Often the institution or school that employs an educator fails to provide adequate support and education in technology.

What is to be Learned

This course presents basic video and audio techniques to improve quality in order to facilitate clear communication with students. This course also provides ideas for encouraging and assisting students with their own video and audio production. My aim is to provide easy to understand information regarding the technologies involved thereby filling the gap that many educators express feeling between what they want to do and what they have training and resources available to do.

Learner Analysis

The individuals who use this mini course are educators from a variety of backgrounds. They are typically classroom teachers for grades K-12 or in higher ed in a wide variety of subjects. Most learners have a college degree and many also have a graduate degree or are in the process of attaining a graduate degree. Most participants use technology in their teaching, but few have specific training in media production, and many indicate a desire to learn more about using audio and video in their teaching.

Survey of Educators

What type of technology have you used in your teaching in the past year?
Which aspects of producing educational content do you want to learn about?

I conducted a survey of educators, surveys were distributed online to members of ETAP 623 as well as my network of friends in the education field. I shared a link to the survey on Facebook asking friends in the education field to take the survey and to pass it along to any of their friends who are also educators.

Surveys were completed by 34 individuals. Of the participants 35% indicated they were involved with teaching college or higher education, 32% with grades 7-12 classroom teaching, 21% with K-6 classroom teaching, 6% with corporate or professional training, 15% taught athletics programs for kids, 9% taught athletics for adults, and 9% were involved with teaching after-school programs. Participants could select more than one instructional field hence the total of more than 100%.

All of the participants indicated using technology in their teaching in the past year. With 72% indicating they had shown online videos, 76% had created power point presentations, 26% had created their own videos, 9% created audio files, and 64% uploaded files to the internet.

The majority of the respondents indicated a moderate to high level of competence using technology. While 18% indicated that the support available to them through their school or institution was not as good as they would like, and 24% indicated they received no support from their school or institution.

When asked 'Which aspects of producing educational content do you want to learn about?' The three top answers were : 44% 'ways to help students create their own audio and video content', 32% 'improving video', and 24% 'improving audio'.

Instructional Content

Based on the findings of my survey this mini course will focus on assisting educators in creating audio and video content for and with their students. Because of the varied backgrounds this course will present a solid foundation of knowledge that will serve as a platform for further learning or as a brush up on the basics for more advanced participants.

Context for Instruction

The individuals who take this have done so because of a personal interest in learning more about producing good-quality audio and video to use in their teaching, and ways to help their students create their own audio and video files.

Exploring the Instructional Problem and Solution

In examining the initial problem in the context of the survey results it is clear that many educators desire information on the creation of video and audio files. The large percentage of respondents indicating that they desire information regarding ways to help their students create audio and video files indicates a slight adjustment to the initial goals. In developing this mini-course with a focus on audio and video production it is feasible to incorporate information addressing this need. The course will emphasize ways for students to create content using audio or video recording techniques in addition to solutions aimed at the educators production of audio and video content.

Goals of This Mini Course

Clearly define the key elements of “good” audio and video production.

Provide information to improve educator's video production.

Provide information to improve educator's audio production.

Explore ways for educators to help students create their own audio and video files.

Course Objectives

Participants will understand the complexities of producing audio and video files, recognize good production values, and be able to optimize their productions given their available resources.

Performance Objectives

Upon completing this course

Unit 1:

  1. Participants will recognize the need for planning when creating an audio or video piece.
  2. Participants will develop a plan (including why, what and how) for an audio or video production of their choice.

Unit 2:

  1. Participants will identify five components of good audio production
  2. Participants will create a raw (unedited) audio file using the recording resources readily available to the participant.

Unit 3:

  1. Participants will identify five components of good video production
  2. Participants will create a raw (unedited) video file using the recording resources readily available to the participant.

Unit 4:

  1. Participants will create an edited audio or video production according to the created plan.

Unit 5:

  1. Participants will explore ways to incorporate audio and video production in their teaching/educating.

Task Analysis

Essential Prerequisites:
  • Basic ability to use consumer level audio and video recording hardware and software.
  • A moderate to high level of comfort using and exploring technology.
  • Desire to understand video and audio production.
  • Hardware available to record basic audio and video files.
Supportive Prerequisites
  • Works in an environment where they can incorporate audio and video production in their lessons.


Unit 1: Planning

Objectives:

  • Participants will recognize the need for planning in creating an audio or video piece.
  • Participants will develop a plan (including why, what and how) for an audio or video production of their choice.

Learning Tasks:

  • Read the unit 1 guide
  • Define a video or audio production of their choice based on given criteria
  • Complete the production planning worksheet
Unit 2: Audio

Objectives:

  • Participants will identify five components of good audio production
  • Participants will create a raw (unedited) audio file using the recording resources readily available to the participant.

Learning Tasks:

  • Read the unit 2 guide
  • Listen to examples of good and bad audio files
  • Discuss production values of audio files
  • Create and upload a raw audio file
Unit 3: Video

Objectives:

  • Participants will identify five components of good video production
  • Participants will create a raw (unedited) video file using the recording resources readily available to the participant.

Learning Tasks:

  • Read the unit 3 guide
  • Watch examples of good and bad video files
  • Discuss production values of video files
  • Create and upload a raw video file
Unit 4: Editing

Objective:

  • Participants will create an edited audio or video production according to the created plan.

Learning Tasks:

  • Read the unit guide
  • Revisit and revise the plan created in Unit 1
  • Using either the audio file or video file (created in Unit 2 or 3) create an edited product.
  • Upload and share the final edited file.
Unit 5: Incorporating Video and Audio Production in Your Teaching

Objective:

  • Participants will explore ways to incorporate audio and video production in their teaching/educating.

Learning Tasks:

  • Read the unit guide
  • Revisit the content of units 2-4 in the context of participant own teaching
  • Visit example lesson plan sites
  • Discuss ways to incorporate video and audio production in participants work
  • Bonus: Develop a lesson plan using audio or video production techniques.

Curriculum Map

Curriculum Map

Course Outline

  1. Planning
    1. Why: Why are you creating this piece? What is the message or information you want to convey? Who is the audience?
    2. What: What is the piece going to be as a final product? How does that piece 'speak' to the audience, both as content and as form? How long will it run? How many shots? Etc.
    3. How: How are you going to create the piece? What resources are available? (Rights?) What raw elements will you need, such as locations, people, shots, etc.? What technology?
  2. Audio
    1. Types of audio:
      1. Natural ('Wild') Sound (Ambient/unprompted)
      2. Field Sound (Interviews, etc.)
        1. Controlled environment: office, library, etc.
        2. Uncontrolled: playground, workspace, street, etc. (Often too noisy)
      3. Studio Sound (Studio interview, voice-over)
      4. Music & SFX
    2. Tools:
      1. On-camera/built-in sound
      2. External Mic
        1. Handheld mic
        2. Body mic
        3. Shotgun (Directional)
    3. Audio Matrix
  3. Video
    1. Types of video
      1. Still images
      2. Field shoot
        1. Handheld
        2. Tripod
        3. Special angles – ladders, etc.
      3. 'Studio'
        1. Dedicated space
        2. Pseudo-Studio
          1. White wall
          2. Backdrop
    2. Lighting/Color
      1. Light Levels, White Balances, and Shadows
      2. Indoor
        1. Existing Lighting
          1. Florescent (Office/Classroom)
        2. Added Lighting
      3. Daylight
    3. Video Matrix
  4. Editing
    1. Story Telling: Writing Analogy
    2. Techniques
      1. Tempo & Rhythm
      2. Jump Cut
      3. Cut away/Covering Video
      4. Transitions:
        1. Dissolves vs hard cuts
        2. Special transitions: don't do it
    3. Audio First
    4. Music
    5. Editing Tools (Software)
  5. Incorporation into Your Teaching
    1. Helping Students
    2. Sample Lesson Plans

References and Resources

Content References:

  • Brindle, M., & Jones, C. (2014). The Digital Filmmaking Handbook: The definitive guide to digital filmmaking. Quercus: London.
  • Clark, J. M., & Paivio, A. (1991). Dual Coding Theory and Education. Educational Psychology Review, (3). 149.
  • Mayer, R. E. (2003). The promise of multimedia learning: using the same instructional design methods across different media. Learning And Instruction, 13(External and Internal Representations in Multimedia Learning), 125-139. doi:10.1016/S0959-4752(02)00016-6


Photo Credits:

Introduction: Header Photo: Listen Up! Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic License.

Unit 1: Header Photo: Chris Campbell Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic License.

Unit 2: Header Photo: Brad Flickinger Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic License.

Unit 3: Header Photo: Fernando de Sousa Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic License..

Unit 4: Header Photo: Paul Allais Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic License.

Unit 5: Header Photo: copycatko Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic License.

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