Making your own: creating and adapting content

Introduction

In many ways, developing new materials to deliver online is not very different from preparing materials for face-to-face training. The same educational principles apply.

As you design a new session or course you will be thinking along familiar lines of deciding what the learning outcomes should be, how can they be achieved, what resources will you need, and so on. Rather than being a constraint, online delivery can open up new possibilities that you may not have considered before.

With online training comes the potential to use a variety of media and to use content creation tools to package them all together into a coherent learning experience. As well as providing interesting ways to use audio and video in training, if you want to explore further, there are online tools available to produce graphs and infographics, animations, storyboards and more.

You can turn static documents featuring text and images into online exploration tools, linking to websites, animations, videos and so on to enrich and enliven the learning experience.

There are so many technologies available that could be used for content creation and adaptation we could not give full details here. Instead, this section provides an overview of the kinds of tools available to improve online learning experience and some tips for things you should be aware of when using them.

Writing text for online learning

Before turning to more animated online tools, it is worth considering the way you might use written text in your training. For online training, using a lot of continuous text is not advisable because reading from a screen is tiring and can rapidly become boring. However, providing summaries or supporting material in text can be helpful, especially if there are problems of intermittent or limited internet connection.

If you are asking your learners to read material from a screen rather than a printed page there are some subtle ways you can vary your writing style that can make the learning experience more enjoyable for the participants and more likely that they will engage with the material and learn from it.

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Cartoon drawings of the same student sitting at his desk, looking at his screen. In one of the pictures the student is looking at a screen with plain lines of text and is clearly bored, evidenced by his body posture, leaning on one arm with a series of zeds coming out of his head; in the other picture the student is looking at a colourful screen with varied images and is clearly engaged as his posture is sitting upright in his chair concentrating on the screen and there is a metaphorical lightbulb above his head.

Write in short sections, using sub-headings. Use photos, diagrams, cartoons and other images, and design features like bulleted lists, tables, boxes and quotations to break up the text and make it easier to digest.

Remember, online learners can feel isolated so you can help by using a friendly tone and conversational language in your writing style, addressing the learner as ‘you’ and relate the training to their own circumstances.

You can also include short questions that will make the learner pause and think before they move on. Providing answers to these questions can be affirming for the learner if they have come up with a similar answer themselves but this method can also encourage those who may be less confident.

Repurposing and extending slide presentations

Tools like PowerPoint contain several features you can use to enhance a basic slideshow presentation: for example, by adding a recorded narration or including video clips. Adding audio can be used for a synchronous session but it is more likely to be useful for repurposing a slideshow presentation for an asynchronous online audience because it gives the audience the benefit of a spoken accompaniment without you needing to be there.

You can choose to make a continuous recording of your narration or you can add sound clips to individual slides. One advantage to individual sound clips is that the learner can choose when to begin listening – for example, they may wish to read the content of the slide first. Similarly, a vision-impaired student using a screen-reading programme can listen to the text being read aloud before selecting the audio clip.

By contrast, a single narration file across the entire slideshow forces the learner to pause the narration if they cannot read and listen to everything in the time you allow before moving on, and the screen-reader user will hear the text being read aloud by their assistive technology at the same time as your narration, which can be confusing.

Low-tech video recording

You may be able to find existing videos available on the internet that you can incorporate in your training (see the section Off the shelf: using existing online materials  for more information on this) but you may also want or need to make your own.

This does not need to be complicated nor require sophisticated equipment. A simple set up with a phone camera can work well.

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Photograph of a woman sitting at a desk, making a video recording using a mobile phone attached to a mini tripod in front of her.

Activity: Using low-tech video

Timing: Allow about 15 minutes

Watch this short video, which was created by Pauline Tyson, an independent Primary Education Consultant, to show people teaching numeracy skills how to create a simple ‘arrow cards’ tool.

Download this video clip.Video player: nc4868_tyto_2021_vid009_1920x1080.mp4

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Transcript

PAULINE TYSON:

Hello. My name's Pauline. I'm making this video today to demonstrate some of the ways that you can use the arrow cards. I cut arrow cards out of old cardboard packaging, making sure that the cards are exactly the same height, the arrows are the same size, and that when they were fitted together, you could see the correct part of the number.

You can see that I've made number 213 here. You can show learners the value of each digit in a three-digit number by expanding it. So, I can take this number apart. The 2 is worth 200. The 1 is worth 10. And then we've got the 3.

You can ask learners to make the number out of the arrow card. So, if, for example, you would like them to make number 132, you'd expect them to get a 100, the 30 -- important thing is to line up the arrows in the right places -- and a 2, 132.

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Now watch the next video, in which Pauline gives some practical tips about how to make short videos like this to use in your training.

Download this video clip.Video player: nc4868_tyto_2021_vid001_1920x1080.mp4

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Transcript

PAULINE TYSON:

Hello, my name's Pauline. I'm going to share with you some tips and techniques for making training videos I've picked up over the last few years. Let's start with some technical tips. Always film landscape and in HD. Keep the background simple. Wear plain, non-branded clothing. Make sure your face is clearly visible.

Good sound quality is important. If your device doesn't have a good microphone, use a headset or an external microphone. Speak clearly and try not to talk too fast.

You don't need any special equipment to make a training video. I often prop my phone up on a pile of books if I don't need to move the camera. A tripod can come in useful, though, if I need to change the focus, for example, from my face to the desktop. I often ask a friend or a colleague to help with that.

If I want to share myself writing, I take the glass from the bottom of the fridge, prop it up on two piles of books, and put my camera face down on the glass. Choose a technique that works best for the point you want to make and for your particular audience. When making a training video, I go through a process that involves four P's -- purpose, plan, prepare, and practise.

First, purpose. What are the key points that I want to get across? What does my audience really need to know? Writing these down helps me to keep focused and make sure the video is not too long.

Second, plan. I write myself a script. And against each point, I put the props that I'm going to need, the kind of resources that will help to get my point across. Third, prepare. Now I need to make all of the props that I've decided I needed, and I write myself a prompter sheet. This saves me reading from the script, which sounds really artificial.

I make sure everything is really easily available for me so that I don't have to move away from the camera. So, here are the arrow cards that I made to use with the arrow cards video and the book that I used. You see they're just here right in front of me.

Once you've got everything ready, expect to do quite a lot of practicing. It takes a while to get it the way that you want it and to remember all the words that you want to say in the right order. Once you've got it so that you're happy with it, you're ready to shoot your final film. Remember, enjoy yourself. Have fun. And just be yourself.

Spend some time practicing, and you'll soon feel confident to film yourself. Short to-the-point videos with lots of visual aids are a great way of training and will prove an invaluable tool for you.

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Make some notes below about when it might be useful for your own training to make some videos yourself.

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Discussion

Your own notes will obviously be specific to your own circumstances, but here are a few general possibilities. You could use video for:

• Demonstrating something physical, like Pauline’s arrow cards
• Talking about a prepared diagram and using a pointer to draw attention to specific parts of it as you speak.
• Making a voice recording describing what you are doing while you are in the process of writing or drawing, in the same way you might talk while writing on a whiteboard or flipchart in a face-to-face setting.
• Recording interviews with other people. Note that if you do this, you must tell them what you intend to do with the recording and get their permission to use it first, preferably in writing.
• Recording scenes, views or people engaged in particular activities, indoors or outside, that you can use to illustrate the topics of your training. Again, if you include people you must ask their permission to use the video for your training first.

Screencasting

A screencast is a recording of what you are doing on a computer screen, with a voiceover, which is then published online or sent to your audience. In effect, it is a form of video that has a computer screen as the subject that is being filmed. The learners can pause and replay part or all of the screencast as often as they wish.

Free screencasting tools and free trials of paid-for tools are available, although these may be limited in terms of the length of recording that can be produced, and sometimes the finished recordings contain a watermark advertising the tool used.

Paid-for tools offer a much greater range of features and flexibility in output but you can try them out first to see if it is worthwhile to purchase a licence. Camtasia, Adobe Connect, and Doceri are examples of paid-for tools which offer a free trial at the time of writing.

Small interactive tools with big impact

Tools that enable you to add interactive items to web pages, such as word clouds, quizzes and drag and drop exercises are all freely available on the internet. If you have an idea for an online teaching technique that you would like to try with your learners, the chances are there’s a tool out there to help you to achieve it.

You can find lists and comparisons of different tools if you search using terms such as ‘online interactive tools’, for example this list from an educational not-for-profit organisation.

Going further: e-learning development tools

We hope that this course has made you realise that creating engaging online training material is within your capability.

However, if you want to go further, there are more complex tools available which can help you to generate comprehensive, multimedia, interactive online training materials should you wish to. If you are interested in immersing yourself in new tools and techniques for content creation, a web search for ‘e-learning authoring tools’ will bring up a range of current technologies you could try.

Many of these will be intended for commercial, large-scale providers, so you’ll need to check which, if any, suit your needs. At the time of writing, examples included Adobe Captivate, Articulate 360, Xerte Online Toolkits (free), Elucidat, iSpring, Camtasia, OpenLearn Create (free) and more – new tools emerge every year.

Now choose your next section.