Henry Adams

Online Instruction

How can you make a video of a lecture to share with students? In the first section below I describe how I do this via computer screen capture. (Other options include making a video of oneself writing on a board, or making a video by writing on a tablet.) In the second section I discuss my current plans for my online class in Spring 2020. In the third section I show how to post a recorded video to YouTube. In the fourth I show how I display my iPad screen on my Macbook, and in the fifth I explain how to create a screen-capture video with a talking head and notes taken on my iPad tablet. I point to a few broader resources in the sixth section. In the final section I briefly discuss how to create an online research seminar; please contact me for more information.

I. How I make videos of lectures

Three different ways to make videos of a lecture include:

1. Making a video of yourself at a chalkboard or whiteboard,
2. Making a video by writing on a tablet (see Section V below), or
3. Making a video of class content on a computer screen, along with an inset video of your talking head.

I have a little experience with videos of type 3 above. In such videos you can share whatever content is on your computer screen, such as typed notes, scanned handwritten notes, slides for the class, homework solutions, etc. You can also include an inset video of yourself talking. The point is that the students can see and hear you as you talk through course content. A dozen such example videos are available at my personal YouTube channel.

I record these videos on my Macbook using Quicktime, which is software produced by Apple, and which comes pre-installed on most Apple products. The main idea is to take a video of your screen, which contains both the class content you want to share, along with a smaller window with a real-time video of yourself! I learned how to do this from the YouTube instruction video by LewisT. Here are my instructions:

• Open the class content (notes or slides) that you want to discuss.
• Open QuickTime, and then select "File → New Movie Recording."
• Select "View → Float on top." You should now see a video of yourself from your computer's internal video camera.
• Drag the video screen to a corner where it doesn't cover the class content.
• In QuckTime, select "File → New Screen Recording."
• If needed, select "Internal Microphone" for audio.
• Click the record button, select the region of the screen you want to record (this should include the inset video of yourself), and then click start.
• Stop the recording.
• Save the produced .mov video file, which you can then share with your students.

One tip regarding content is to divide a single lecture into two or three shorter videos. I find that pre-taped lectures produce fewer minutes of content than my normal class periods, precisely because the interaction with students in class is missing. On the upside, students can pause or replay a video. Having shorter recorded videos perhaps frees up time for students to join follow-up interactive sessions using video conferencing.

II. Plans for my class

In Spring 2020 I am teaching Math 366, Introduction to Abstract Algebra. This is a non-coordinated course with 44 students enrolled. My current plan is to pre-tape lectures, and then share them with students two days before the "due date" for watching the lecture. I am thinking of reserving the normal class period for problem solving sessions via videoconferencing. I am lucky that prior to moving class online, we already had notes for the class posted publicly, an active discussion forum for homework problems on Canvas, and solutions to homework and practice exam problems posted to Canvas.

I will pre-tape my lectures using video screen-captures, as explained in Section I above. These videos will be posted to YouTube, as explained in Section III below.

My class period will consist of videoconferencing sessions with my students. These videoconferencing sessions will be recorded, so that students who are not able to attend class are able to watch them later. However, I cannot post these recorded videos (which will include my students in them) to YouTube due to FERPA rules. Therefore, I am using the Canvas Conferences videoconferencing system, which uses BigBlueButton. I explain how to use Canvas conferences in the video below.

Advantages of Canvas Conferences include:

• the meeting is easy to create in Canvas and easy for students to join.
• it is easy to take a recording, which is automatically posted to Canvas and available for students to see for 14 days.
• the recordings seem to be hosted off of Canvas by BigBlueButton, and hence I don't think they count against the 5GB Canvas limit per course at Colorado State University.
• it is easy to share my Macbook screen (say with notes) for the students to see.

Disadvantages of Canvas Conferences include:

• The whiteboard in Canvas Conferences for writing on is not very good (no eraser!).
• You can't share your screen from an iPad tablet.

To get around these two disadvantages, I figured out how to have my iPad screen appear as a QuickTime window on my Macbook (see Section IV) below. Then, I can share this Quicktime window on my Macbook. So my students can all see me writing in my iPad.

III. Posting a video to YouTube

There are pros and cons to any platform for hosting video. One advantage of YouTube is that you can not only share your video with your class, but also make it publicly available, if that is your desire. The video below explains how to post your first YouTube video. This consists of two steps: creating a YouTube channel, and then uploading your first video.

IV. Displaying my iPad screen on my Macbook

The video below explains how I display my iPad screen on my Macbook using QuickTime software.

V. Recording a screen-capture video with both my iPad screen and a talking head.

The video below explains how I record a screen-capture video with both my iPad screen and a talking head, using both QuickTime software and Zoom simultaneously.

VI. Links to other resources

Colorado State University has resources for its instructors, including a page on how to move your course online, and resources on how to record or stream video with Echo360, Echo360 Universal Capture, or PowerPoint software. See also these notes from Stanford University on teaching effectively during times of disruption. You may be interested in joining these discussions on online teaching hosted by the MAA

VII. How to create an online research seminar

While I only have limited experience making videos of class lectures, I do have extensive experience co-directing an online research seminar! In Spring 2020 I wrote an article How do I ... develop an online research seminar? to appear in the AMS Notices Early Career section. Our Applied Algebraic Topology Research Network (AATRN) online seminar has an interactive hour-long research talk every other week during the academic year, which audience members from all over the world can attend for free. We record each such seminar, and post the video to our corresponding YouTube channel, which has over 650 subscribers, over 110 videos posted, and receives over 1,100 hours watched per year. I am happy to share my perspectives on building such a research seminar; feel free to contact me to discuss. See this list of online math seminars that I currently know about.