Introduction

We’ve combined the content for lessons 3, 4 and 5 together as it's difficult to say where your class will get up to by the end of each lesson, and the activities for these lessons run together. So look over it all when planning and find a natural stopping point at the end of lessons 3 and 4.

If you are using shared iPads, make a note of which iPad each pair has so they can easily find their work in the next lesson. 

Recap the last lesson. By now the student teams should hopefully have a completed plan and script. They should also be reasonably familiar with the basics of Keynote or whatever presentation tool you’ve chosen to use. Quickly go back over some of the key features as described in the previous lesson asking the students for guidance:

• How can I add text?
• How do I format my text?
• How do I add an object?
• What if I want it to be green?
• How do I add a slide?
• How do I add a drawing?
• How do I present and annotate? 

 

Tips for a good instructional video

It's almost time for them to start their recordings and create the footage for their videos, but before they do ask the students do you have any technical tips for successful recording  of your videos?

Gather their ideas and then talk through these five useful tips:

1. Prepare everything you need before you start recording. Your video will be much slicker if you have everything you’re going to need already on your pages. Get all the text, graphics etc in place and looking good before you start. Your viewers don’t want to sit and watch you mess around finding things or changing how they should look, they are there to focus on the skill you are teaching. The only thing you can leave out are the annotations you plan to add while demonstrating, for example, showing how to complete a calculation.

2. Record things in small chunks. Start and stop the recording with each step of your guide. That way, if anything goes wrong it's easy to just re do that section. This will save you editing time later.

3. Record either audio or video first, but not both at the same time. When you’re trying to do two things at once it's easier to make mistakes. If you’re doing a step-by-step guide (like we are), recording the video first is usually best. Focus just on making all the drawings and steps really clear. The audio can be added later in iMovie.

4. Do things slowly on screen so people don’t miss things, and so you have time to talk over them and explain things. You can include pauses where you might need time to explain something or give the viewer thinking time, but these can also be added (or removed if they’re too long) later in iMovie as well.

5. Find your microphone and keep your iPad still.  The Mic is in slightly different places on some iPads, so find out where yours is. Speak near to it but not with your mouth on it. Don’t move your head around or change your position when you’re recording your voice, it will affect the audio. 

It can be difficult in a busy classroom, but if you can find a quiet space to record the audio your video will be much better to watch, getting rid of as much background noise as possible makes a big difference.  With this in mind, be respectful of others and keep quiet when they are recording.

 

Prepare the slides

The next job is step 1 from that list; preparing everything they will need in the video using Keynote. It needs to look attractive but consistent through all the slides and be really easy to follow. Refer the students back to their plans and get them to set up all the slides they will need.

 

Record the video in chunks

If you are using one of the whiteboard apps screen recording is usually built in as a feature and pretty easy to find and use. If you’ve used Keynote for your slides though, we’re going to use the built in screen recording feature on iPads running iOS 13 or above. 

You may need to go to the Settings app on your device to turn this feature on. Go to Settings > Control Centre and check that Screen Recording is in the Include list. If it isn’t, find it in the More Controls list below and tap the green + sign to add it. 

 

 

Then exit the Settings app. On any screen you can now swipe down from the top right of your screen where the battery indicator is located. That will bring up the Control Centre shortcut tools. Screen Recording is the dot in a circle. 

 

 

It's also a good idea to enable Do Not Disturb (☾) at this point to stop unwanted notifications popping up when you are trying to record (as they’ll also be shown).

 

 

When you’re ready to record press and hold the Screen Recording button. This will give you the option to toggle the microphone on and off. Leave it off for now. Then tap Start Recording to begin.

 

 

When it's recording you’ll see this icon at the top right of the screen. Tap it to stop the recording. 

 

 

If you are in Presentation mode in Keynote you won’t see the icon, but you can still swipe down from the top right of the screen and tap the Screen Recording button to stop the recording. 

And when you press Stop, a notification that the video has been saved to the Photos app.

 

 

Demonstrate all this to the students and remind them about steps 2, 3 and 4 above:

• Record the video in small chunks: Stop the recording after each section.  If anything goes wrong, don’t worry, just stop the recording and start that section again. 
• Do things slowly so people can follow.
• Just record the video first. Remind them that they’ll be able to trim their clips and add sound and other things in iMovie later. 

 

Starting to edit. 

When they have recorded their clips they may want to go to the Photos app and look back over the clips. They don’t need to worry about editing or trimming anything here (we’ll do that with iMovie) but if there were any clips that were total mistakes then they can be deleted by selecting them and tapping the bin icon at  the top of the screen. 

When they are left with only the clips they intend to use, the next job is to import them into iMovie. You can find Apple’s full user guide for iMovie here.

 

 

Open iMovie and create a new project, then choose Movie.

 

The next screen shows content in your Photo Library, you can add media straight from here into your movie or just tap Create Movie at the bottom of the screen. 

 

 

This is the main screen for editing your project. It contains the viewing window, the media library and the timeline. Tap the ? at the top of the screen for helpful labels. 

 

 

In the media section tap video > Recently Added. You will see a visual list of all your video clips in chronological order, the newest at the top. 

 

 

As you tap each one you can watch it (without adding it) with the play button, or add it to the project with the + symbol. 

 

 

Scroll down to find the first clip (it should contain the title slide) and add it to the timeline. Add all the other clips in order as well (a double tap will also add them). If anyone mixes up the order of their clips they can easily be re-ordered. Tap and hold the clip you want to move on the timeline, then drag it left or right to its new position and release it. 

 

TASK - Ask the students to add all their clips, in order to the timeline.

 

Most of the clips will probably have small parts at the beginning or the end which show when you were activating or ending the screen recording function. We don’t want these to show in the finished tutorial video so we’ll trim them away. Tap any clip on the timeline to select it, then use the thick yellow handle bar at either end of the clip to trim it. Just drag left or right from the ends of the clip to trim it. The playback window will show the section you’re trimming so you can be accurate. If you need even finer detail when you are editing anything, you can stretch the timeline view by moving two fingers apart on the timeline. You can compress the timeline by pinching it with two fingers. 

 

TASK - Ask the students to go through all their clips and trim the ends. 

 

 

Adding the narration

Next, one clip at a time, ask the students to add their voice narrations. They should get their script ready and watch each clip a couple of times to get familiar with what happens and when. Try reading it through as the video plays to get a feel for if it fits well. 

When you’re ready to record, tap the microphone icon. The Ready to Record box will appear which shows sound levels and the option to begin the recording. Tap Record and you’ll get a three second countdown before the recording starts. 

 

 

TASK - Ask the students to add narrations to all their clips. 

 

Each recording will show on the timeline, under the video layer. These can be tapped and edited just like the video clips. 

 

 

You may find that some of the video clips are actually too long once you add the narrations. There might be a section after a recording that isn’t now needed and can be trimmed.

 

 

If any of the narration clips are too quiet you can adjust the volume of each one individually by tapping the clip, choosing the Volume option at the bottom of the screen and adjusting the slider. 

 

 

If any of the clips are too short for them to fit their narration to it they can be stretched by adding a freeze frame section. To do this, scroll to the point where you want to freeze the video, tap the clip on the timeline and choose Speed at the bottom of the screen. Tap Freeze to the right and a new yellow section will appear on the timeline, this is the length of the frozen section, stretch or shrink it with the thick yellow handles at each end. 

 

 

Adding titles and overlays

Most of the students should have added the main titles and labels when they created the slides in Keynote. However, they may want to add some extra pop ups and text overlays to emphasise things that are being said in the video. 

 

To add text to a clip, tap the clip on the timeline and choose Titles at the bottom of the screen (highlighted in orange below). Then choose a Style (highlighted in green) and decide where it should be on the screen (highlighted in yellow). Different styles give slightly different options but you can usually put it in the middle or the bottom of the screen. Then tap the Title Text Here writing that shows on the playback window (highlighted in red) to add your text. 

 

 

TASK - Ask the students to add any text they want to their video.

 

If you don’t want the text to show over the full length of a clip, split the clip. Position the playback bar at the point you want the text to disappear, tap Actions at the bottom of the screen and then Split and the clip will be broken in two and the text will only remain on the first section. 

Splitting is also very useful for deleting sections from the middle of a clip. Perform a split before and after the section you want to delete and then delete the middle section. 

When everything is done it's really important to watch the whole thing through from start to finish. It's rare that there’s nothing to fix or improve at this stage!

 

TASK - Ask the students to watch their whole video through to check for errors and quality.

 

Saving and Exporting

When the check is completed it's time to save and export the finished video. Tap the Done button in the top left. 

 

 

To name the project tap My Movie and edit the name. 

 

 

Then tap the Share button and choose Save Video. Choose the quality you require (Medium is usually fine and keeps the videos a reasonable file size).

 

 

The video will then start Exporting and you’ll get a notification when it has been saved to the Photo Library. 

 

 

Plenary

Finish this section by having a look at one or two finished examples. Ask the class:

• Is the video clear and easy to understand?
• Is it factually correct?
• Has it done its job?

Take feedback and discuss.