Experiences of Remote Delivery: Dr Benjamin Bader

It is not easy to deliver a two-hour lecture remotely. Especially, if the lecture was not designed for online delivery in the first place and in its original version does have interactive elements with the students and draws on their live input. Hence, simply narrating the slides with a voice-over and put them online is sometimes not the best option. Dr Benjamin Bader explains how using Camtasia software helped him to tackle this challenge:

When thinking about how to best move my content online, I quickly realized that ReCap is not the best option. While this allows for simply recording the lecture “in one go”, it is hard to include additional elements and overall, a bit inflexible. I was mentioning this to a colleague from Germany during a research call and he asked me, why I am not using Camtasia. Although I am generally interested in tech and thought I was up to date, I must have looked quite puzzled when I heard “Camtasia”. So my colleague went on with his “sales pitch” that eventually got me hooked. Just a disclaimer, neither he or me are affiliated with Camtasia or do get any sort of commission. Just two academics dealing with the same problem (How on earth do I get my class online quickly and with a good learning experience for students?!) and helping each other out. If you are dealing with the same problem I was, I am more than happy to share my experience with you.

Essentially, Camtasia is a hybrid between a video editor and graphics software that comes with an integrated screen recorder. The core benefit here is that you can do both, include slides in a video and narrate as you would do in the lecture – or do a mix of both. At the same time, you can insert additional content such as quizzes, text, music, animations, and so on. Camtasia offers very good tutorials and besides that, the software is really intuitive and easy to learn. If you have ever worked with a video editor before, you will find yourself at home quite quickly. And if not, don’t worry. Besides a lot of online tutorials, it comes with a demo project where you can test everything and experiment before you take on your first live project.

After playing around with the demo for a while, I decided to get started making an intro, just to get used to how the software works and to have a visually appealing start of my lecture. If you want to check out the result, please visit here. The music and the moving background are included in Camtasia and there is a decent library with content available. Slides are mine, as you can see, I also added a little box which I am making use of during the online lecture to add content. This works by simply adding a text box in the software and leave it for as long as you need it. You can also include other things, such as the smiley in the video, completely up to you. Just like a large puzzle, piece by piece you add elements, slides, audio, and build your lecture. When you are done, you can create an .mp4 video or export directly to Youtube etc.

Another benefit for me was that after having put together the visuals, I could add my narration where I needed it when I needed it. So even for one single slide, I could create several shorter audio files, explaining different parts. That way, I could re-record if I had made a mistake. And it is easier to think about the overall storyline. A process of think – record – pause – think – record – pause (and a good number of takes for some parts, so if you are a perfectionist, you need patience). In the end, the viewer of the video won’t be able to tell the difference. For them, it is one continuous audio track. Now, if you are thinking the re-recording is time-consuming: yes, a bit, but it would have taken me much more time to record everything in one go because I probably would have done several takes of the entire lecture and still been much less happy with the end result.

If you’re hooked too, what do you need to get started? Eventually, other than the software itself, I guess three things. First, you need to get comfortable hearing your own voice on tape. For me, that’s still somewhat odd, but I am getting used to it. Second, you need to be willing to experiment and give some thought to how you adapt your content for a better student experience. If you simply want to give the lecture as you would do in the classroom, you better stick with ReCap. There is nothing wrong with doing so, however, you will only unfold Camtasia’s potential, if you use its features. And finally, this shall not be omitted here, you need some proper hardware, especially if you do longer lectures. I realized that in my first one hour lecture, with each additional minute of content the software responded a bit slower and the final rendering process (no worries, the software does all that for you and compiles one usable file) took quite a while. However, there’s an easy fix: break it down into 30ish-minute bits and create separate projects. You can easily combine the parts later on.

If you are interested in learning more, please reach out to me. I will be offering a webinar on Camtasia as well and am happy to share my experiences with you. For further details from the software publisher, please visit https://www.techsmith.com/video-editor.html.

Many thanks to Dr Benjamin Bader for sharing those experiences. If you wish to share your own experiences of moving to remote & online delivery please do get in touch to share your personal story. Finally, if you haven’t already done so please join the Education and Technology Forum Microsoft Teams site for more information and frequent updates.

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