When wishing to use student produced videos in your teachings you should make sure that the students have access to a smartphone or other video equipment that enables them to produce the videos. Furthermore, it is important to make sure they have access to video editing software.

It is essential that you choose a subject where you feel that it makes sense for the students to make a video concerning it. Typically, videos where the students’ learning process is in focus or videos concerning a short summary of a subject prove most effective. Furthermore, it is important to provide the requirements that the students must follow when producing the videos:

• What are the requirements or goal of the videos? What skill do the students have to demonstrate in their videos?
• How high must the production value be? Should it involve material that has been edited in or is it sufficient that the students film themselves?
• What should the duration of the videos be?
• Should they have a manuscript? And should it be submitted with the video.

It should also be made clear whether this is an individual task or if it should be completed in groups. If it should be a group effort, is it expected for all group members to appear in the footage?

These questions can all be answered by providing an example of how the task has been solved well. You could produce this video yourself where you lay out the requirements and expectations of the students’ videos.  

As a rule of thumb, the videos lengths should be around 3 to 7 minutes. If you are teaching a small or midsized class, the evaluation of the videos is a manageable task. If you are responsible for a larger class, it might be too difficult to watch and evaluate them all.

AAU has their own platform for recording, editing and sharing of videos. The platform is called Panopto and is very similar to YouTube. The advantages of Panopto are that the platform falls within GDPR regulations, so the videos that the students upload are safeguarded. Panopto works well with Moodle, which means that you as an educator can ask your students to hand in videos from Panopto directly to Moodle.   

If you want to know more about Panopto and how to get started using it in your teaching, you can read more about it here. You are also welcome to contact CDUL