Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

5 ways to make your videos binge-worthy at PCC

Posted by Monica Marlo

One of our Online Learning department effective practices is to internally share useful resources as we discover them, so when Greg passed a link off to us last week for this excellent blog post via Campus Technology by Dian Schaffhauser on “5 Ways to Make Your Videos Binge-Worthy.” I thought the best way to share this information on with our faculty was to localize it. So once you read the initial blog post and are hungry for progress, hereʻs how you can move forward at PCC:

1. Framing questions – Our instructional media design team can help you reflect on the content of your lecture and offer feedback on framing questions. When you fill out our Media Production Request Form, you can add a link in the form to a draft of your script which gives us all a head start on the development process. If you feel like you come across as “wooden” when you start from a written script, try voice typing when creating your script in a doc on Google drive- that way you can capture your natural speaking voice, giving your instructional design partners an initial feel for the scope and pace of your presentation. When you fill out the Media Production Request Form, be sure to check the ʻconsulationʻ box, and share a link to your script on Drive in the formʻs comments box.
2. Use of Animation– Here at PCC we always use a ʻfind firstʻ philosophy when it comes to expensive media components like animation, helping maximize our development budget and preserve faculty time for student centric practices. Start with our Subject Liaison Librarians to search for what may already be available in either our collections or open education resource (OER) directories.  Remember too that if you do a search on the general web for resources, you can always link out to copyright-sensitive content, but it will be your responsibility to check your links before your lessons run to be sure that content is still available, and external content may need additional internal support for accessibility. If you canʻt find what youʻre looking for due to lack of availability, good news! This gives us an opportunity to add to open education resources ourselves! While we donʻt have access to a pool of talented graduate students at the CC level, we do have programs like Video Camp and our course development pipeline that can get you access to animation services as the instructional need is identified.
3. Quizzing– We are currently evaluating Kaltura and H5Pʻs Interactive Video Quizzing functions, so if youʻre an instructor who is interested in adding interactive quizzing to your media playback, let us know on our interest form.
4. Use of Experts– Want to enrich your course with expertise? Use the Media Production Request form and we can invite area experts to media studio space available here on Sylvania campus for a professional capture. Please note that this is a service that can require planning time, so put your request for support in as soon as possible. Want to take the D.I.Y. route and capture expertise as youʻre out and about with your smartphone or tablet? Instructor Seth Bloombaum and Community Ed have you covered, and you can gain these skills in two half-Saturdays coming up in April.
5. In-Video Prompts– Iʻm going to circle back here to the answer that I gave for number one framing questions – If you are looking for advice on how to use in-video prompts, we can help you as an overall review of your script. Fill out the Media Production Request Form, link to your script, and check the “Consultation” box. Weʻll get back to you within two weeks with feedback and next-step advice.