Category Archives: instructional videos

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Audio Post-Production: Getting Rid of those Hums

  March 22, 2015 , ,

Hi everyone, Don’t tell me it’s already Spring Break? Mamma mia, time does pass by quickly. Anyway, I want to share with you some stuff that I’m currently working on. This is mostly going to be interesting for those of you who have an interest in audio post-production especially as it relates to dealing with the kinds of issues that pop up when you produce videos. So, as you know one of my projects is about recording a couple of videos that not only promote hybrid teaching (some also call it blended learning) but videos that offer advice for faculty and students who want to try out hybrid forms of learning. While the video has already been cut, there are still a couple of problems as far as the audio is concerned. For one, our interview videos will have music running in the background, so we need to make sure that the music doesn’t overpower the speakers. So, some level adjustment is in order. Besides that, we will have to deal with some unwanted noise issues that were part of the recording process. So, what I am going to do now is run you through the way I deal with these kinds of things. That is not to say that it is the only solution. It’s simply my way of working. The steps I will be running through quickly are: cleaning, level adjustments, filtering out hum, compressing, and limiting. All of those steps I applied to the vocal performances. On … Continue reading

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Look at all the Lights

  December 7, 2014 ,

Well it has been a great week here at the Exchange after a month hiatus in Eindhoven, Netherlands. Most of my week has been spent fine tuning the details of the Vacufuge safety video in Captivate 8.  Yep! You heard right! We have switched from Captivate 7 to Captivate 8.  And to boot I have transitioned from using a PC to a Mac.  All of this has culminated in quite the learning curve on how to navigate and to manipulate items in Captivate. And without a proper instructional video on how to use new items like the Drag and Drop interaction on a Mac, most of my time has been spent on poking around, using trial and error to find out why my interaction was not responding in the same ways as the PC version. However, after several hours and sheer persistence, I am happy to say we have it working the way we wanted it to!! Learning to customize Drag and Drop Interactions in Captivate 8 on a Mac Key take aways from the experience include: Captivate 8 tool windows are hidden until manually turned on for a Mac. In order to only have one correct answer for a Drag and Drop Interaction, you have to click on the Drop Location, click on the Format tab, click on the Object Actions… button, and then select the appropriate Drag Source Type on a Mac — not intuitive or parallel to a PC.  When you preview the file th Drag items … Continue reading

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Interactive Video

  November 23, 2014 ,

Hello fellow SIFers, I know people have been wondering for a way to make videos more…fun? Yeah that’s the word. Because I don’t think many people want to sit through a video of someone talking about an event or idea. You also don’t want to make more work that is overtly complicated. Sooooo I found a library that deals exactly with that. It’s called p5JS. It pretty much gives users the power to interact with video. You can view an example of it here. p5JS is a spin off from Processing, which deals with accessing artists, coders, and other visual-relation fields together. It’s a broader scope than just dealing with interaction such as quizzes or tests. It encompasses a whole new idea of digital literacy by imploring the user to learn from mistakes and practice on skills they already learned in class. So basically, it’s sort of returning to us 90s kids generation of primary learning. Video shows like Dora, or Sesame Street, or Blues Clues where learning through video meant waiting for user to make a suggested input and practice on that input throughout time with repetition. I guess that method of learning through video got lost somewhere between elementary and middle school, but hey we can always do it with the next generation of kids. On a related note, P5JS and Processing are both part of a wider gain of web technologies focusing on creating new ways for people to express things in the browser: HTML5. I’ll talk about … Continue reading

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Catch-Up

  November 23, 2014 , , ,

Well these last few weeks have been busy, to say the least. Apart from working in CURVE, I have been catching up on my group project. Babacar, Nathan, and Valerie have filmed and added a few more professors to the long list of videos and questions that we have. Currently, the next step has been to construct the playlists and note any potential improvements that can be done. Dr. Collins has organized a meeting after Thanksgiving break in order to watch some of our playlists and make any necessary corrections to them. This is an ever changing and evolving project because the end goal is to create a space in which students can get ideas and answers to some of literature’s challenging and thoughtful questions. We also want to create a space in which professors can create these videos on their own or collaboratively, so that students can receive new and different ideas and responses. Anand

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Consumption vs. Production in the Hybrid 2110

  November 3, 2014 , ,

With a lot of help from Ameer, I am finally reaching the point where I can make videos more or less on my own. As I have been making them, I have been thinking about how educationally useful the experience of making the videos is. The countless decisions about what edit out, how to write captions that add to the content of the talking heads, and how to select images that enrich the storyline are really useful exercises in critical thought. The making of the video is more stimulating and engaging than the experience of watching them. Maybe this is simply a reflection of my still-modest chops as a filmmaker, but I think fundamentally it has to do with the difference between consumption and production – or, to use Halverson’s terms, between the kinds of content based technologies educational institutions have often been drawn towards and the learning technologies that have proliferated on the internet. So, I have been thinking about how to use the hybrid 2110 and its video component in ways that try to capture something of the experience of making the films. I know of at least one person at GSU, a VL named Nicole Tilford over in Religious Studies, who has been teaching students in upper division classes to make video as an assignment. You can see some of the results of her student’s work here. However, Nicole has been doing this with upper division courses, which has several significant advantages for projects of this nature. … Continue reading