

Slide production is something a lot of us do for teaching anyway, so I’m not counting this time toward my 6:1 estimate. I try to leave ample blank space on my slides for whiteboard work, wherever possible. Making “good” slides for a video presentation takes the most time in the whole process, at least for me. If you’re an Overleaf user, you can see the basics here. I then adjust the Beamer style file and settings to structure my content around the frame and title bar. Note: I use a background image in my Beamer slides to template my whiteboard layout and webcam frame, like the one below. The only requirement is that they be able to be viewed full-screen on your computer. But this step can be done in literally any way you like: PowerPoint, Keynote, Google Slides, etc. Savvy math folks will instantly notice that my slides are made using LaTeX’s Beamer class. After some practice, though, and especially since adopting screencast software, I’ve been able to winnow down the time it takes me to make a video, start-to-finish, to around 6:1 or less (for example, sixty minutes of work to produce a ten-minute video clip). Producing high-quality, well-thought-out mini-lectures can be time intensive, especially in the beginning.

(The Doceri app has native video recording right from the iPad.) But I find that using them together gives me the combination that I’m looking for: whiteboard-style annotated slides, plus video of a real person presenting them. Talk: Webcam video, overlaid at recording time using Screencast-O-Matic (PC/Mac).Įither one of these tools by itself can be a killer way to capture instructional videos.

The two main components of my “chalk and talk” video design are, naturally:Ĭhalk: The Doceri whiteboard and remote PC control app (iPad and PC/Mac). More specifics on my own hardware are in my Twitch post. Less precise, but still usable.) With my desktop computer, I add a decent webcam and as nice a microphone as I can manage. (Though when I began with Doceri in 2012, I used an inexpensive passive stylus from Dollar Tree. With my iPad, I use an Apple Pencil stylus these days.

I combine two pieces of hardware - an iPad and a desktop computer - in producing my videos. The video below is a good illustration of what this technique can produce. Here’s how I produce mine with a relative minimum of time and fuss, and only two tools: the Doceri whiteboard app, and a screencast software. But for effective and reusable online content delivery, you can’t beat a carefully designed, 5- to 15-minute mini lecture video. Streaming live teaching via Twitch is great fun.
