Topics Map > Services > Teaching, Learning and Classrooms > Video/Media Options
Making Basic Videos Using Smart Devices
Video recording is an important tool for promoting social presence in your online course. Recordings are often viewed as elaborate projects, but videos don’t need to involve a big production. This page will walk you through how to use your smartphone or mobile tablet to record and share a video.
Recording Tips
- Video length: Keep in mind that you are going to want to caption your video, so keeping it short will save you time. Make sure to follow any guidelines for this video, but shorter videos will save you editing time.
- Lighting: Use frontal lighting and try to defuse it if at all possible, this will make light less harsh.
- Background: Be mindful of what you are showing us in your background.
- Hold your phone horizontally:
- Web video is shown in what's known as "landscape" orientation, where the video is wider than it is tall.
- Be sure to hold your camera horizontally so the screen aligns with landscape mode. If you don't it will record in "portrait" orientation, where the video is taller than it is wide.
- A video recorded in portrait mode will appear in YouTube with black bars on the left and right sides. A video recorded in landscape mode will fill the screen nicely.
Editing Tips
- Software: Just because you recorded your video on your mobile device does not mean that you are limited to using that device to edit your video. By importing your recordings to a desktop or laptop computer, you can utilize more advanced video editing software to enhance your recorded videos without much hassle.
- Camtasia is a software application mainly used for creating video tutorials and presentations. The IDC's desktops all have Camtasia installed, so you can edit your recordings in the IDC computer lab while also having staff assistance available to help you use Camtasia.