Week 4 - Preparing to podcast

Last week I ran a quiz with the students I will be using as guinea pigs for my FC session. I'm glad I did, as they are very inexperienced in editorial design, so this FC content will really benefit them. It also helped me understand how very basic I will need to make this as they have little or no previous experience. I will keep the structure of the recorded element the same as in my plan, but I want to look into how I can refine the activities within the live session. I have an hour with them, but there are normally approx 15 students in the session so I have to work out how best to get them doing an active task within the limits of an online conference format. I need to do some more research into different approaches – as we haven't had much input since we created the plans last week.

Why should I create my own content rather than outsource? The students trust you and your time, and can hold you accountable for it. You have a rapport with the students and engages, keeps it personal, keep it human.

What technology should I use? Before now I have used after effects to put a presentation together, but it took me ages to edit and export it. I had to render and resave so many times to make it work properly, it was so stressful! I’m hoping to make a simpler video with a screen recording with a voice over. This will hopefully make the process more time efficient and still just as effective. It will be just as engaging, just as long as the content is relevant and interesting.

Very important to keep the recorded material on point – it needs to be relevant, accessible and link back to the learning outcomes. Focus on the material and content! Keep the structure simple to make it easy for all levels and abilities to engage with. The course I am teaching is a visual one, so I should assume that the students are visual learners, solidified by active learning experiences. The Koumi (2015) framework reminds me of the presentation principles I learnt in a RADA drama school workshop – where we had to get people’s attention, then tell them what we were going to discuss, discuss it, then conclude on what had been discussed. Simple but effective. I think this will work well with students, especially in a pre-recorded session. The structure I had planned uses this basic skeleton, which is reassuring.

During the webinar last week, Andy suggested breaking up pre-recorded sessions with questions or tasks for the students, so that it didn’t become to lengthy and disengaging. I need to think about how I can bring this into my session, maybe with questions to help them prepare for the live session. I will place these questions at the end of each new element being introduced – type, image, layout etc. I have planned for a 15/20min video, but it may be that when I record it, it becomes shorter than that, depending on how I get through the content. I want to be clear and thorough, and don’t want to rush it.

To plan for my video, I will write key points I need to hit throughout, rather than a script. I did a scripted video lecture a while ago and weirdly it was the FC content for my students last week! A few commented on the way I read off a script. I have more experience and confidence now, so I feel capable of presenting without a script. I have a clear speaking voice, so I think this will be accessible for students whose first language is not English.

A podcast format would not work for this course, as it needs to have a visual element. But I think that a simple video can be just as simple to produce. If needed, a resource pack of design material can be provided to the students too.

The tasks this week weren’t as challenging as I was anticipating, in a way I kind of needed them to provoke me more. The main takeaway has been to add questions into the video and to keep it as short as possible without losing clarity. The evaluation form was useful but a bit wordy, though I think this will be useful when we assess our work.