Record in Canvas Studio (Google Doc)

Record with Screencast and Webcam (4-minute video)

Add Captions to Canvas Studio Videos (3-minute video)

NOTE: You cannot generate automatic captions for videos from YouTube, but IDT TAs can help. Use the TA Request Form.

About Canvas Studio

Canvas Studio is an add-on to the learning management system that allows instructors and students to interact through video and audio media. You do not need a license to another program such as Camtasia.

Benefits

Students can post comments and ask about muddy points while watching.
You can add quiz questions that students must answer while watching.
You can track to see whether students watched the video.
You can track how long students watched the video.
You can easily comply with federal law by activating the automatically generated closed captions. You'll usually need to clean up the punctuation and some misunderstood words here and there. Creating accessible video content has been shown to aid nearly all students, not just those with disabilities (Linder, 2016).

Comments on a Studio video timeline

Features

Instructors and students alike can add videos using Studio.
- Record Webcam: Use the camera for a welcome, a straightforward lecture, or an assignment for students to record a 1-minute video reflection of their learning for the week.
- Record Screen Capture: Share your computer screen to give a lecture with slides, orient students to the course, discuss a website together. You can also ask students to record and share presentations for individual or group projects. Studio is actually built off of the Screencast-o-Matic platform, so it does have some editing capability when you've used the screen-recording option. You can also show your face in the corner of a screen capture video.
- Upload: Bring in previously recorded videos made by you or someone else, or enter the link for a YouTube video. Note that automatically generated captions are not available for YouTube videos, but IDT has ways to help you get captions loaded.
- Troubleshooting: IDT recommends keeping videos short and using a hardline connection to the internet while uploading. If your upload gets interrupted, there is a possibility to recover what you already recorded. Contact IDT for help before re-recording your video.
Pages, Discussions, and Assignments can all allow for embedding Studio videos.

Canvas Studio Help

Studio: Video and Audio Creation in Canvas - Instructional Design & Technology offers a complete resource with illustrations, videos, and links to the Canvas Studio Guide.

About Campus Recording Studios

Keep in mind that you are not limited to using a webcam for creating videos. Instructional Design & Technology manages two recording studios on campus:

Faculty Studio: Open to all NNU instructors, including adjuncts, to record in a professional studio with an IDT student employee as camera operator
Self-Service Studio: Open to all NNU employees and students and easy to operate with a five-minute orientation if desired

Recording Studios - IDT offers a complete resource with illustrations and booking options.

Tips for Recording

A large-scale study has shown that students engage best with videos under 6 minutes. Engagement drops a bit for videos between 6 and 9 minutes, then begins to plummet when videos are between 9 and 12 minutes (Guo, Kim, & Rubin, 2014). Guo and colleagues also found that the narrator's speaking rate affected student engagement; the faster the speaking rate, the more students paid attention.

As you write your script or outline, follow these suggestions to lengthen the shelf life of your video (Norman, 2017):

Avoid references to earlier and later lectures or modules. You may want to change the organizational structure later, making such references moot. Keep your script generic.
Avoid discussing other assignments. Again, if you modify your course design in the future, the video becomes out of date.
Avoid using web links. Since links change all the time, it’s best to limit URLs to your slide presentations or course content pages, which you can edit as needed.
Avoid university-specific references. Offices change locations and people change positions. Go with basic references such as “a librarian” or “the Registrar’s office” as much as possible.
Avoid referring to current events. Students watching your video in the middle of September don’t necessarily need to hear about the wonderful Fourth of July you had. Talking about current events is fine if you only plan to use your video once.