If you want to teach your class from home or any other location relevant to your teaching, there are several ways to record your class and then broadcast it.

If you teach your course while broadcasting it live online, you are doing what is called streaming. This allows students to follow your course remotely.

Using streaming does not preclude active engagement with your remote audience. For example, you can use online pedagogical tools to ask them questions during the session.

There are several tools you can use to record and upload your course:

Recording and broadcasting in a classroom

You can simply go to one of the available rooms at the UNIGE to deliver your course. Upon request, you can record your course and make it automatically available on Mediaserver, the UNIGE's multimedia storage platform.

Here is an example of streaming done at the UNIGE.

Pedagogical note:

• It is impossible to conduct the course when you are in the room, and the students remote, with only the room’s equipment.
• Recording your course with the tools of the room, as well as on zoom to deliver your course to both present and remote students requires a good technical and pedagogical agility to engage both groups.

Technical note:

• The video you record is uploaded as is on Mediaserver (without editing).
• You can however choose to receive the video instead of placing it directly on Mediaserver.
• You can choose to put the course in "hidden" to have time to edit the video.
• If you edit your video beforehand, you will have to upload it manually on Mediaserver.
• It is necessary to use the room's microphone for the sound.

Find all the information, tips and tutorials on the e-learning portal.

Recording and broadcasting with Zoom

Zoom has the advantage of being able to record and broadcast your course from any location. Zoom also allows you to interact with your audience and plan learning activities framed within your teaching.

The simplest recording you can make with Zoom is the same as the one you make in a classroom, and is called the ecological capture. It is a matter of commenting on the course material, recording it and broadcasting it to the students.

Here is an example of ecological recording at the UNIGE.

Pedagogical note:

• You should not put the resulting video on Moodle directly, as the size is too large, and you might lose video quality if you try to reduce the size of the video. It is better to upload it to Mediaserver first and embed the link on Moodle.
• You can reuse parts of your recording for teaching purposes.
• You may want to cut your video into parts to structure the material and concepts before making it available to students.

Technical note:

• Mediaserver has an option to load your courses directly from Zoom. A tutorial is available.

Find all the information, tips and tutorials on the e‑learning portal.

Before embarking on the production of an educational video of your own, it is worth considering what has already been done. A number of these video clips developed in higher education are freely available on the internet for simple reuse. If, however, they do not exactly cover the desired theme or if you do not wish to use them as is in your teaching, these productions will give you a good overview of the art of video production specific to your field and will guide you in your personal production project.

Pedagogical note:

• Even in a remote learning context, a video is not going to replace your course, so it is not a matter of giving your entire course to your students in video form in advance. Rather, you should identify a relevant element of your course, with a precise pedagogical objective to prepare your audience. This can be done by introducing a concept, a model or a question to be discussed later during the course (in person or at a distance).
• The video you include in your teaching does not have to be perfect or cover your entire topic. It can just serve as a starter for the topic you are going to cover. For example, the video may be deliberately incomplete or misleading: you can use it to start a debate, to encourage interactivity with your students and to deconstruct their misconceptions before you give them the content of your course.
• Focus on content from your discipline that changes little or not at all over the years, and save the scientific news for the live broadcast.
• Think about how to integrate this video production into an educational scenario that can work both in person and online.

Technical note:

• Systematically reference the source of the video used.

Resources:

• In A Nutshell
• Khan Academy
• Crash Course
• Ted Ed
• The Info Show
• Clipedia
• Example of face camera (example of video made at UNIGE)

Each semester, we launch a call for projects that will allow you to present your video project within the framework of teaching and to specify your needs in terms of pedagogical and technical assistance.

If your project:

• is internal to the UNIGE
• is for the benefit of the UNIGE community
• is for university training purposes
• has a project manager attached to the UNIGE.

You can submit your application via this form until 01.04.2022 (12h):

• analyze all applications and select the winning projects to receive support
• propose alternative supports for projects that have not been selected
• plan the production of the selected projects (prioritization, resource allocation)
• define the necessary guidance.

The selection of projects

The Group determines:

• the feasibility of the production of the requested video, especially in the particular context of the health measures in force
• the possibilities and modalities of support/guidance
• the video service to be requested according to the availability and resources of the services and faculties concerned (common services: Médias Unis, ms050, and services/persons in the faculties: vll, FTI, other)
• the inability of the handling of the project, and if so, redirection towards a training or a support allowing the autonomy of the teaching team
• if necessary, the Group negotiates with the teaching team the scope, the planning, and scale of the project according to the resources available
• the Group verifies that the planning will allow for the follow‑up of the projects and their management
• the Group prioritizes the order of selected projects.

Projects are analyzed according to the following objective criteria:

• projects that are feasible within the mandatory health measures will be prioritized for the year 2022
• the project involves video production
• the video(s) produced are part of a coherent educational project (pedagogical alignment, relevance)
• the project will have an added value (improve support, supervision or empowerment) for the students, for the teacher or the teaching team
• the objectives and expected (learning) outcomes are made explicit
• the production is exploitable and transferable in several contexts and over time (dissemination, sharing, potential for transfer to other contexts, reusable for other courses, audiences, level of generalization).

Project support

Successful projects will receive support for:

• pedagogical coherence and advice on the setting up of scenarios
• the technical realization of the videos and their production
• the development of skills around video, both pedagogical and technical, to allow you to gain autonomy
• communication and promotion of the project
• projects are supported through the resources already available in the SEA and MediaUnis teams. No additional financial resources are provided for the purchase of materials, additional resources or advertising.

Your participation

Projects involving video in education require a lot of work. Make sure you have the time and resources on your side to complete the project. This requires a high degree of availability and responsiveness on your part. In particular, you will need to provide:

• time to discuss and define (redefine if necessary) the scope of your project and plan its implementation with the educational and technical teams
• time to write the scripts for each video you wish to make
• time for filming (setting up equipment, booking locations if they are specific, etc.)
• time to check the results and make any necessary corrections.

Get started

As a teacher, we want to transmit a maximum of content. This preoccupation with quantity is often to the detriment of the time we devote to the active involvement of our students and to the verification of their knowledge acquired over time. This is even more true in a distance learning context! One solution may be to use video, where different options are then available to you.

Before embarking on a video concept that is too complex and requires a lot of resources, we invite you to look at the precedent tabs.

Creation of a new video

Once you have an idea of the content you want to cover in your video, there are different typologies available to you. Within each category, a video can be made with greater or lesser investment of time and energy.

We offer you a personalized pedagogical and technical support for your project. We will agree together on the material to be used (personal material, material made available by the institution, video studio). The different categories can of course be mixed within the same video.
If you want to do this independently, you can use free video recording and editing software such as Openshot or OBS. You can also ask for an institutional license of Camtasia.

Whatever category you choose, keep in mind that you should resist the temptation to record "everything"! From a pedagogical point of view, it is better to divide a long presentation into small thematic video clips.

A few general recommendations before you start producing your video clips to encourage student engagement and understanding:

• be well prepared
• keep it short
• vary the content
• animate live if possible
• and be enthusiastic!

Examples of videos made at the UNIGE

• examples of videos facing the camera
• example of illustrated narrative video
• example of a video of commented slides
• example of a video of an illustrated experiment.

The Studio VI

Studio VI is used for an intermediate-level segment of video production, for projects that are too complex to be done by teachers alone, but short enough to be produced in a few hours with the support of specialized technicians.

Studio VI has a surface area of approximately 20 m² and is particularly suitable for the following types of educational videos:

• facing the camera
• illustrated narration
• commented slides
• illustrated experiences
• interviews (2 people).

The Studio VI is equipped with a capture system composed of the following elements:

• 2 4k cameras, compatible with a high frame rate operational flow (4k @ 60fps)
• a video switcher with 4 video inputs with the ability to capture live, and transmit live on the usual broadcast channels (facebook, youtube).
• an interchangeable background (black, white and green screen)
• a mobile lighting system
• a sound recording system (lapel microphones and studios).

The Studio VI is completed by

• the Studio VII, control room and video editing
• the Studio VIII, video editing
• the Studio IX presented below:

The Studio IX

Studio IX consists of a series of video/audio/photo post-production workstations, available to educational video projects for their editing phase.

In order to optimize their use, any project that takes place in the MediaUnis facilities is accompanied technically by the MediaUnis team and pedagogically by the SEA team.

Key points

Studio VI

• multipurpose video production space
• address : 18 rue De‑Candolle
• email : mediasunis(at)unige.ch
• management : MédiasUnis.

The Studio IX

• video post‑production space
• address : 4 rue De‑Candolle
• email : mediasunis(at)unige.ch
• management : MédiasUnis.

Equipment

MediaUnis provides a video equipment loan service for educational video projects that would be conducted independently by UNIGE teachers.