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Student Groups Create Video Presentations

Students are often required to do research and give presentations. Camtasia Studio can take it to the next level by allowing students to articulate their presentation in a video format which can be shared with others in the building, the next year’s class, or even the world!

We realize that your school might not have a copy of Camtasia Studio for every student. In this example we offer a way for students to use Jing, which is free, in conjunction with one copy of Camtasia Studio as an alternative. Working in groups can also free up computers and while each student will have important responsibilities, they can share one computer.

Here are some suggestions for using Camtasia Studio with students: In this example, students are researching countries around the world using a variety of digital resources. Before even starting Camtasia Studio (or Jing) the following preparations should be made.

Considerations for the Teacher

1. If you’re not very experienced using Camtasia Studio, you may want to try the lesson yourself as a technical dry run before turning the students loose.
2. Will students be using Camtasia Studio or Jing? (If Jing, check out this article as well.)
3. How will you collect the videos? See Recommendations. Each group’s video (whether recorded with Jing or Camtasia Studio) will be assembled into one large Camtasia Studio video with a Table of Contents entry for each group.
4. Will you impose a time limit for the video? It’s easy for students to go on and on. However, it’s usually harder to make a good short video than a decent long one. For younger students in particular you may wish to set a rough guideline for time as opposed to a firm limit.
5. How much of a “template” will you give to your students? One of the most challenging parts to creating a video (as well as any presentation) is getting organized and breaking the content up into parts. You could give them the “skeleton” or storyboard in video terminology.
6. How will students record audio? This can be difficult in a school setting—not only is it likely challenging to find a good quality microphone and room to record, you really don’t want a bunch of students recording at the same time in close proximity. A few suggestions:
   1. A script is critical. It’ll save so many re-takes and so much time. It also gives you a good change to approve the student’s direction before they get too far into the process.
   2. Set up an audio recording station. Once student scripts are approved, the “narrator” can record the audio and save it to a USB drive. Bring it back into Camtasia Studio and then make the screen recording. It may sound odd to record the audio first, and it’s definitely an acquired skill, but in fact, many experience Camtasia Studio users swear by recording the audio first, and then record the video as you listen to the audio with headphones.
   3. Accept the fact the audio might not be awesome. Your rubric could include objectives of clear, lively, and or well-paced speaking, but you may not want to mark people down for background noise or other less-than-ideal sound quality.
7. You should decide on a standard video dimension all students must follow. The easiest thing to do is record full screen. Learn more about dimensions and aspect ratio.
8. Where can students store images and content? It’s likely students are going to want to record images and examples of what they’re researching. A great tip is to capture an image of a website and then record that. Often you don’t need the live website to show something. You could capture images with Snagit, Jing, or the Print Screen key.
9. Prepare student groups however you prefer. All students should contribute to the storyboard, research, video recording, and editing. You need the following:
   1. Narrator: Reads the script and records the audio.
   2. Lead editor: Responsible for putting the video together and effects. They are also responsible for learning how to do certain things in Camtasia Studio—either with help resources or asking others.
   3. Lead writer: Main responsibility for the final storyboard and crafting the script.
   4. Optional: You could have a producer (responsible for getting you the video in specified format) or lead video recorder.

Recommendations for Collecting Videos

The challenge is that you will have multiple groups each creating videos, and you, or a student volunteer, needs to string the videos together into one long video.

As a reminder, the first step is to make sure everyone is producing at the same dimensions. If students are using the free version of Jing, their videos will be in SWF format. Camtasia Studio 6.0.1 and higher can convert SWF videos from Jing into AVI files which can be placed on the timeline and edited.

If students are using Camtasia Studio, perhaps the easiest way to get the file to you is as an AVI. AVI files are of high quality, but if space is a concern you may wish to try MP4 or WMV as AVIs can grow into large file sizes.

Video files in general can be quite large so you might want the videos to be moved to a network drive then downloaded to the computer that will be assembling the clips together. Alternatively, save the videos to a large USB thumb drive and transfer as needed.

Instructions for Students

1. Explain research assignment, goals, roles, and presentation just as you would for any presentation.
2. Form groups as desired.
3. The first thing the students should do is begin their research. Remember Camtasia Studio will only record what’s on the screen so if they learn something from a book they should enter key points into a document, PowerPoint slide or maybe even scan the page(s).
4. As their research evolves, they need to create a storyboard. Try to break the content into “scenes” or short clips.
5. Out of the storyboard comes a script. You may want to make an analogy to a teleprompter or documentary program. We strongly recommend making scripts, and to be clear—this is not an outline—students would literally stick to each word on the paper.
6. Once the scripts are approved, decide whether if the students will record the script audio separate from the screen recording or if they will try to “talk and drive” at the same time.
7. Make the recordings and edit the video. We recommend recording the video in clips. For example if the students have an introduction, some PowerPoint content, then some web content, followed by a closing, you would likely consider that 4 clips (4 recordings). This is slightly more difficult if recording with Jing because they would have 4 separate Jing videos that the final editor would have to put together in the right order as opposed to just one final segment from the group. Good file naming conventions will be critical. (View tutorials about editing.)
8. Produce the video, save it to the directed location and give it to the person who will be doing the final editing. (View tutorials about production.)

Notes to the Editor Making the Final Video

Assuming you have about 8-12 segments from the students, the first thing to do is click Import Media and navigate to the student-produced files. Once imported, they will appear in your Clip Bin. Drag them to the Timeline in the order that you want.

If you’d like to get a little fancy you can add a title slide in the beginning, maybe some transitions between groups, and most importantly include a Table of Contents.

Download a free copy of Camtasia Studio.

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