Resources for creating educational videos

My focus this week is on creating educational videos for use in the classroom. 

I explored the following resources to find one I could use to create a series of short videos about literary devices for my high school English class. 

Create animated videos:

Adobe Spark Video is free graphic and video production program from Adobe.

Animaker is an easy-to-use animation program for creating videos.

Creaza Cartoonist lets students create comic strip style videos.

GoAnimate is another option for creating animated movies. It is easy enough for middle school and high school students to use for projects.

Create slideshow and whiteboard videos:

Explain Everything A paid application that works for Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, and Chrome, lets you create interactive whiteboard videos. (30 day free trial available)

Stupeflix and Sharalike are two online applications that let you create slideshow videos by adding pictures and music.

Create videos by screencasting your screen:

There are many different applications for capturing what's on your screen and making a video out of it. Visit the screencasting resources page at Kathy Schrock's Guide to Everything for a breakdown of what options are available for each technology platform.

Screencast-o-matic is a popular screen recording program that works on Windows or Mac.

Video editing tools:

WeVideo A robust digital video creation and editing tool with features for use in schools

YouTube's Video Editor offers video editing tools

VoiceThread lets you create rich, multimedia presentation videos. 

I created the following video using Explain Everything entirely from my Android-based mobile phone:

When making the video, I tried to adhere to the multimedia design principles I discussed in a previous post.  My original script included a segment about anthropomorphism and how it differs from personification, but then I remembered the coherence principle says that unnecessary material should be excluded rather than included. I also tried to apply the spatial contiguity principle that says that graphics and text should be in close proximity to each other. 

Overall, the process of creating a video, even on my mobile device, was not extremely difficult. One thing I like about creating videos for use in the classroom is that once the video has been created, it can be reused forever (as long as the concepts and ideas remain current.)