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Carl Oliver: Do you wish you had more time to help students who need it? Do you feel
like you've explained something a hundred times? Do you wish you could clone yourself
so that you could spend more time with students to make sure that they're grasping critical
concepts?
Well, one way you can do that is by making instructional videos. I want to show you a
special technique that's simple and effective that you don't have to learn any software,
you don't have to buy anything, and probably 80% of you can start it right now.
So, the special technique has a number of features. One of them is fade-in, and fade-out
of objects. Here's a fade-in, of a two-dimension object, there's Justin Bieber right there.
And there a special technique, you can fade in from the left side; you can fade-in from
the right side. You can fade-in sideways (look at that), or, fade-in of three-dimensional
objects. Look at that, three-dimensional Justin Bieber, you can even rotate, see that? That's
amazing!
And, the other features, things that you'll find in Camtasia and stuff, it does all that
stuff, like fade-in, fade-out, did that. Pointer, here's a pointer, you ready? Pointer. Here's
a fine pointer, you ready for a fine pointer? There's the fine pointer. Multi-pointer? I
can point to virtually, any number of things all at the same time, isn't that amazing?
Wow! Bet you can't do that in Camtasia.
Look at this, I can highlight. I can use arrows. I can customize the arrows, I can underline.
Look at this underline. I can underline in whatever colour I want! And, look at this:
draw virtually any shape in virtually any colour. I'm going to draw an orange happy
face.
Alright, so, you may wonder, how can we set up this amazing thing without actually learning
any new techniques or nothing to buy, well, check it out. I have a piece of paper, I have
a binder, and another binder, and a straight edge across so, if I were doing this at home,
I would use a piece of wood. I have a light to get rid of any shadow, I've got some props,
and that's it! So what I would do, what I have been doing is you put your phone or a
camera right there, you balance it so the camera is pointing over the edge, and in five
minutes, you're up and running, just like that.
Now, another powerful part of this I can do math here. I can say E=mc2. But then I can
step by step, rearrange this. So say you want to solve for "m", we can divide both sides
by "m", and that balances it out, so, "E" over "m" equals "c2", look at that, oh I didn't
solve for "m", but I can do things like that. And you can circle things, you can point to
things, so I think it's quite a powerful way to introduce yourself within five minutes
with zero start-up costs, and make instructional videos. And I think, if you tried this out,
and made a video, post it online, and see what you're students think. If they like it,
keep doing it! And I think, if technology isn't making your job easier, or helping students
learn, you either shouldn't be using it, or you're not using it the right way. So this
is a great way to get your feet wet, and see how you like it, and see how your students
like it. Now get out there and play!