Fred Hosken is a Graduate Assistant with the Teaching and Learning Technologies team. He is a PhD Candidate in Music Theory in the Bienen School of Music, with a research focus in……
Even with pandemic challenges, the pace of academic life hasn’t really slowed down. That includes attending and presenting at academic conferences and other speaking events. This guide presents tips and tricks for creating polished presentation videos, then provides a couple of tutorials for increasing the quality of your next recording.
The main goals of a recorded talk are to
- communicate your ideas clearly,
- in an accessible way
- that is engaging.
To enhance your presentation and fulfill these goals, here are some tips for your next conference recording.
Think about optimizing your environment for a good quality recording.
- Write a script ahead of time. Increase the font size so that you can easily read your script or notes while you are recording.
- Record at a time when the road outside is quiet, the laborers next door have finished their demolition for the day, the kids are in bed, the dog distracted, etc. Make sure that your phone and computer notifications are muted when you record.
- Adapt your space to have more flattering lighting (lit from straight in front or slightly to the side, definitely not behind) and have a less echoey acoustic (putting some scatter cushions behind your computer works surprisingly well). See this video from the video experts at Northwestern IT’s Media Production team on looking your best.
Think carefully about slide design.
- Reflect on the information density per slide. “One slide per idea” is a good mantra. Definitely avoid having a paragraph of prose and six graphs on one slide!
- Think about how your audience will be viewing your presentation. They might be using a 4-inch phone screen, so big text and big graphics are best.
- Make sure that what you’re saying matches what is on screen. People already have multiple demands on their attention and trying to read one thing while listening to you say something else is a heavy cognitive load that will mean something gets lost.
- Consider visual vs. aural learners. Presenting the same information in multiple modalities increases the chances that you are understood.
These simple preparations not only enhance your communication and make for a more engaging talk, they also increase accessibility and equitable access. You can improve this further by making sure to:
- Share your script and/or use captions.
- Use large text and graphics, with lots of clear space to reduce visual complexity.
- Ensure that slide design makes appropriate use of color and contrast. If, for example, you present a graph comparing two groups, recognize that some people may not be able to identify the groups through color alone. Use shapes (e.g. points for group A and crosses for group B), texture (dashed lines vs. whole lines), colors with high contrast, and labels to maximize comprehensibility.
Keep it Simple
Use software programs that you are familiar with: if you typically use PowerPoint, now is probably not the time to switch to Keynote. Remember that you are your harshest critic! Stutters, mispronunciations, etc. are all part of normal human communication. Your audience most likely won’t even notice, so preserve your sanity and be kind to yourself when reviewing the recording.
How To Record Yourself
Quick and Easy Basic Recording
Zoom can be used to create a decent recording of your talk while showing just slides, slides and you, or just you. Simply start a Zoom meeting (only attended by you!), have your slides lined up and ready to go, share screen and select PowerPoint, press Record, then select “Record on this Computer” or “Record to the Cloud.” When you are finished, press Stop.
Using this method, you can generate auto-captions, which are highly encouraged. For full information, see Zoom’s helpful article on captioning.
Other Useful Links
Managing and sharing cloud recordings: https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/205347605
Trim the playback range of a shared recording: https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/115003001383
Level Up Recording with Panopto
Northwestern Zoom accounts are automatically connected, behind the scenes, with Panopto. If you choose to save your videos to the cloud when you press record in Zoom, the videos will also be saved to Panopto.
If you want to take your presentation to the next level, you can use the desktop Panopto application to be able to record your webcam and slides independently and then control how they are sewn together within your presentation.
You can also use Panopto’s online video editor to make cuts (e.g., chop off the first few seconds where you are getting ready and trim the end when you are closing out of your presentation), add and edit captions (strongly encouraged!), and also do more advanced things like insert a YouTube video mid-presentation for maximum resolution (rather than downloading it yourself, having to embed it in your slides, etc.). Links to your Panopto videos can then be embedded into Canvas pages and shared in emails so you don’t have to worry about hosting the files somewhere yourself and possibly run into challenges like YouTube’s automatic copyright striking.
There are many possibilities this resource affords, so do check out our in-depth training guide to using it.
Final Thoughts
As we head into another season of online conferences and also as we continually develop our pedagogical resources, we hope that these tips, tricks, and simple guides help make your presentation recording experience just a little bit easier! Remember to give yourself plenty of time to record…and ensure that you have a reward lined up for when you finish!