How to Film Your Own Videos at Home for the Beginner [click on photo]

The Desk Shot: Easy Way to Film Work-on-Paper, such as:
- math problems,
- drawing isolines
- drawing profiles
- using S and P wave chart
- using the ref tables

click on photo

Equipment and Teacher-at-the-Board Shot

Using YouTube Auto-Translate to Help ELL Students (link)

Tips for making your own videos

• Sound quality is too often overlooked.  Clear, loud audio is extremely important in the videos you make.
  • Be sure to ​speak clearly and loudly
  • The built-in microphones on cameras/phones are pretty good these days.  But if you want improved sound, use a basic microphone.  
    • I like this simple clip-on ("lavalier") mic:  Sony ECMCS3 ($20) 
    • ​​Note: iPhones and iPads require special microphones with "3 rings" on the jack (called TRRS).  Links to these types of mics:  clip on ($15) or directional mic ($60)
• YouTube is a great source for How-Tos on making videos/using YouTube.  
• ​Resolution overview: 
  • 1080 is HD , Blue-Ray quality.  Many phones film in 1080 these days.  This resolution is often overkill and can take up valuable space on your devices and increase upload/transfer times.
  • 720 is also HD, DVD quality.  High quality video.
  • 480 is OK but far from great ; the lowest “acceptable” for teaching
• I always push teachers to avoid creating screen casts.  Getting yourself somehow visible in the video is preferred, even if it's just your hands.
  • Personal Ideology:  We need to use video to help us make a human connection.  So many trends in technology skew toward removing the human element.  We need to buck that trend and work to keep the humanness in educational videos.​ ​