A popular feature of many MOOCs and OOCs is video footage of a real live person explaining something.  Sometimes it’s a lecturer talking at you for an hour (booooring) and sometimes it’s a short cartoon to grab your attention, it could be anything between the two.  There are lots of reasons to use video and lots of reasons not to use video.  The first thing you need to decide is whether or not video is the best way to get your message across.

The results of this study on student engagement are worth bearing in mind.

Other content to consider.

Once you are sure about what you are producing and why it’s a good idea to storyboard your video.  There are some good free online tools like Storyboard That and Twine that you might like to try out but the low-tech pencil and paper sketch is just as effective.

When you have decided what to say, write the video in large font on a word document, layout your pages horizontally.

Read the text out loud and change things which don’t sound right.  If you want to avoid sounding like you are reading out loud, you could only write prompts to remind you what you want to talk about rather than writing it word for word.  Or you could try using markup language to remind you where to speed up, slow down or add particular emphasis to a word.

When you are ready, print them, so you have the script to read, and stick close to the camera, find something to hold them together like a bulldog clip so that you can easily remove the page you just read.

Record it on video that is at least 1080p x 720 (so its HD and it looks great) Any latest mobile phone would be able to record you at this resolution (eg. iPhone 4 or 5, Galaxy S3,4,5; Note 2 or 3; etc.)

Some things to consider: link to tutorial on framing a shot
Having somebody helping you to “frame” you on the screen is a wise move :), also that person can help you “pass” the pages you have already read.

Take at least 3 takes (even if you feel the 1st shoot was great, usually the practice makes you better.

Edit it with a movie editor (Windows comes with Windows Live Movie Editor) and I´ve found that there are many free movie editors for Mac. Tutorials on movie maker and iMovie

Upload it to youtube (with your gmail account you already have a youtube channel) Tutorial on how to youtube/vimeo

Have a go at making a short video about your career or what you studied at school. Share it in the comments with the link, or embed it with the “embed” code that you can find under all youtube videos.

Congratulate yourself!!