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The Transform your Teaching podcast is a service of the Center for Teaching and Learning at Cedarville University in Cedarville, Ohio. Join Dr. Rob McDole and Dr. Jared Pyles as they seek to inspire higher education faculty to adopt innovative teaching and learning practices.
But I still would agree. There's data that supports that as well that viewers notice bad audio more than they do bad video. You know? If you had a video where the the visuals look great and the audio is terrible, that will stand out a lot more than if it's flipped.
Narrator:This is the Transform Your Teaching podcast. The Transform Your Teaching podcast is a service of the Center for Teaching and Learning at Cedarville University in Cedarville, Ohio.
Ryan:Hello, and welcome to this episode of Transform Your Teaching. In this episode, Dr. Rob McDole and Doctor. Jared Pyles continue our series on online teaching practices by talking with our instructional media producer in the Center for Teaching and Learning, Jacob Lashuay. Thanks for joining us.
Rob:Jacob Lashuay you, Ryan, and welcome to Jacob and Dr. Pyles.
Jared:Thank you.
Jacob Lashuay:Thank you.
Rob:Doctor. Today we're talking about media and the use of media, especially in online courses. Jacob is our instructional media producer here at CTL, here at Cedarville University. Also produces the podcast. He does.
Rob:He also does do the podcast and he does a great job. Yeah. So we wanna really talk about media and how it provides just that extra boost and brings a course together in a way that oftentimes we just take for granted in a face to face course. So really the two professionals in the room today are are Dr. Pyles, but most certainly Jacob. So Jacob, why should we think media is important, especially for online courses?
Jacob Lashuay:Well there's a lot of different reasons. Know one thing that comes to my mind immediately is that we live in a digital world. I mean pretty much everybody regardless of background discipline engages with media content, you know, whether it's movies, TV, music, podcasts, this is just the world we live in and so why should education, you know, not produce quality audio and video as well? I think there's a really good opportunity for that, especially when we're reaching our Gen Z and now soon to be Gen Alpha generations that are the most tech savvy students, you know, that we have experienced.
Jared:There's also an element to where in an online course, the face to face element, and this shock is to everyone in the room, but the face to face element is lost in an online course. So there's an element where the audiovideo aspect kind of fills that gap of having someone on screen, give or take, and then having them interact as if they were in a face to face course.
Jacob Lashuay:Correct. Yeah. I mean, it's like the videos that we do here oftentimes are supplementary to whatever the content might be. So typically it's you have your readings for your content, but we often produce videos just as another avenue of learning whatever that material is and hopefully reaching a student in a different way. More students today seem to be more, aware of technology and are more inclined to media.
Jacob Lashuay:And so it just seems like it's a good opportunity to reach certain students that way with different material other
Jared:Different than the traditional modalities instead of just reading or text based stuff. And sometimes there are things that are better translated through video or audio. How many times have you tried to explain something via text and you realize, you know what? I'll just call them because it's so much easier to do it that way. Mhmm.
Jared:I do wanna share a study with you and I wanna get your feedback on this. So this is a study, and we'll put this in our show notes as well, a study titled Improving Online Learning Challenges Created by Media. So they identified some categories of media delivery problem. There were five of them they identified. Five common problems.
Jared:Pace, and I'll define these, the speed at which information is presented, which can affect comprehension of too fast or too slow, Intelligibility, the clarity of audio and visual content, which impacts a learner's ability to process information Quality, the overall production quality of media, including visuals and audio, which can influence student engagement media diversity, the variety of media types and congruence, the alignment of different media forms where inconsistencies can disrupt information processing. Does anything in there stick out to you?
Jacob Lashuay:A lot sticks out. I think that, yeah, mean these are all important. The ones that immediately come to my mind is quality. I mean that's something that I'm really involved in when I'm working on the editing production. For our content here, quality really matters and that's something that we can talk about more.
Jacob Lashuay:I think pace is really important too and just overall video duration. Right? Just because you may lecture in a classroom for forty five, fifty minutes doesn't mean necessarily that will translate over well into video.
Jared:What else though do you see?
Jacob Lashuay:Intelligibility is important too. Know, you can have quality audio, quality video, but perhaps this is opportunity for a script or an outline, making sure that your content is being delivered in a smooth and coherent manner. I'm gonna ask you a question though.
Jared:Why script it if I've said the same stuff for twenty five years? I know it already, why should I script it?
Jacob Lashuay:I I won't say that speaking off the cuff is inherently wrong. You know, some people do that really well. I do think there's benefits to scripting or at the very least making an outline just to keep yourself well organized. And sometimes scripting it out, you can see, you know, maybe I have been in the pattern of saying something over and over again, but looking at it with fresh eyes just might be helpful to be like, Oh, maybe I could say this a little bit differently. Maybe this would make a little bit more sense if I moved it up here, took this part out, know, things like that.
Jacob Lashuay:It gives you a lot more control over the video that you're gonna be producing and what it's gonna look like and how it'll impact the students.
Jared:It's also something that's a reflective practice that we've talked about over and over again in this series, that outlining yourself can be scary because you realize, well, this doesn't make any sense, and I've been saying this for twenty five years. Maybe I should reorganize that in some way. But also I like the idea of outlining and scripting because it then gives you an easy transcript for you to upload to your Yeah, previous definitely.
Jacob Lashuay:To
Jared:help those students who need that support in that way to have a transcript of it or whatever. So more on this study. The findings were that the highest, there were twenty seven percent reported experiencing negative media delivery issues. The top one was quality issues, then it went intelligibility, and then pace, media diversity, and congruence issues. So at least based on this study, seems like the issues of quality, intelligibility are pretty significant and something to be considered when you are developing something media wise in your course.
Jared:Now, here's a question though. How do you handle the quality of your videos, or how do you make sure they're intelligible without studio equipment like we have at CTL? Like, how would you recommend instructors pull that off, assuming they don't have access to the tools Yeah. That we do.
Rob:Let's say all they have let's make it hard. Let's say the only thing they have is a Google Chromebook with a built in video camera.
Jared:That has like seven twenty p. Yeah. And then the mic is only the built in
Rob:mic Yeah. Like it's It's only got one mic.
Jared:It's the
Rob:How do you make the best of that, Jacob?
Jacob Lashuay:I think with something like that, you can still produce a level of quality where students are able to receive that well and learn from it well. So just a couple of things, you know, distractions are something that you want to try to minimize as much as possible for video and audio. In front
Rob:of you and behind you?
Jacob Lashuay:Sure, yeah. I mean, I'd recommend going to a quiet location. So if you're at your house and you're alone at your house, it's great. If you have other people there, go to a secluded room.
Rob:Or a closet?
Jacob Lashuay:Yeah, you could go to a closet. Some way to get rid of as much background noise interference as possible. And visual backgrounds too. Remember one of our other instructional designers, Jason, is taking courses his PhD and he was talking about how somebody recorded a video out in an open park. It might have been in like New York City or something.
Jacob Lashuay:And like the visual backgrounds were so distracting. People were just walking by waving at the camera, you know. That's probably an extreme, but just be aware of what's around you too. Maybe don't point the camera out the window at a busy street. Maybe just be in a room free of distractions as much as possible.
Jacob Lashuay:So that's handling your background and background noise and whatnot. And then I'd say trying to frame yourself well in the camera. What I mean by that is having the camera focus more on your face and more in line with your eyesight as much as possible. We don't want the camera down looking up your nose, as you guys have mentioned before. Nobody wants to
Jared:see that. But I trimmed my nose hairs this morning.
Jacob Lashuay:Yours are beautiful, Oh but the rest of
Rob:my word. Put the camera up at least at eye level height is what I'm Yeah, hearing you
Jacob Lashuay:I think that
Jared:would Buy a box or put it on a bookshelf and angle it.
Jacob Lashuay:If you need to, yeah. And try to frame yourself well and what I mean by that. So say you're sitting at a desk, you know, I would just say chest up or waist up, give yourself an appropriate amount of headroom and so basically from the top of your head to the top of the frame of the video. Not a lot
Jared:of headroom or a lot of headroom?
Jacob Lashuay:I would say not a whole lot, yeah.
Jared:Something I always use as a visual cue for that is to watch the news. Yeah, the TV news that still happens
Rob:look Pay attention at the
Jared:to that. Headroom they Right.
Rob:And then mimic it.
Jacob Lashuay:Yeah. Simple things like that, I think, will produce a video that will suffice for delivering the content that you want and I think that What about lighting? Should be good.
Jared:What about lighting? What about lighting, Jacob? I don't have access to the lighting. Well, you want to
Jacob Lashuay:be in a room that is lit enough so that you're not a shadow, you're not a silhouette, obviously. There's too much lighting, which I doubt people would run into, but where you're, you know, it's this term called overexposure, and you just don't want to be, like, way too lit.
Rob:So when you say not being in a shadow, you're talking about not having shadows, like the top of your head fall where you have a shadow coming over your eyes or over your face in some way because the lighting is way back behind you and that's the only source of light.
Jacob Lashuay:It's ultimately just will it be distracting to your students, will it be They wanna see you. So if you're too dark in the shot, and you should be able to see yourself on your computer and if you think you're too dark then you wanna obviously get to a place where you're more well lit. Maybe it means bringing in some lamps into the room. I guess you just have to kind of evaluate that yourself. But yeah, just don't be in shadows.
Jacob Lashuay:You mentioned a closet. If it's a pitch black closet, that's obviously not gonna work for video. If it's just a dark closet in general. Yeah, those are some things that I would recommend.
Jared:Something that we, CTL, produced back when I had your job, Jacob, was we did a video right before we hit online learning with COVID. Lauren and I, Lauren Isler, our editor, she and I did a video together just talking about some of these best practices. And one of the things I talked about with lighting is the sun, and I said, the sun is your friend. And I said, use the sun as the natural light source that you can use if you don't have access to lights or lamps and then open up a window and, you know, angle yourself in a way that the sun is like illuminating your face. It's not to your back or to the side unless you have like some lighting on the other side, but use the sun to your advantage in that way.
Jacob Lashuay:That's something I would don't disagree for sure.
Jared:Yeah. One of the things that I was I think I've talked about before in the podcast, maybe not, but when it comes to audio, you talk about quiet space, and you can buy those mics, all those mics that are big on social media that just like attach to your phone or whatever or attach to a Chromebook. We have some Anchor mics that we use that are Bluetooth, and those work great just for having just for boosting the audio quality because audio, and I think you would agree with me, and Mr. L would definitely agree with me, audio takes priority over video when it comes to quality.
Jacob Lashuay:Oh. A 100%.
Rob:Quite the statement there, Well,
Jared:I am an audio major and I come from Mr. L's tutelage, so the way audio is king.
Jacob Lashuay:And I was more of the video background when I was a student in my undergrad, but I still would agree. There's data that supports that as well that viewers notice bad audio more than they do bad video. Know, if you had a video where the visuals look great and the audio is terrible that will stand out a lot more than if it's flipped. Right. It tends to.
Jacob Lashuay:I mean, one example that comes to my mind is thinking about our churches, you know, the production at a lot of churches. Oh, yeah. You know, 99% of the time things go well, but when something goes wrong, especially with sound, what's everybody doing in the congregation look, turn around That's right, they And they identify the tech person like, did you notice what happened? And they obviously
Jared:Like if the mic's not on, they're like, Yeah, slow, they one
Narrator:of the
Rob:worst is when you're listening to those who do music.
Jacob Lashuay:Oh, yeah, music. Right? Pretty much any studio
Rob:situation And it is like comes across it as usually flat. Yeah. And it sounds awful. Mhmm. There have been several times where we've just muted during the music portion.
Rob:So but I think to your point, if the audio is bad
Jacob Lashuay:People notice.
Rob:Oh, immediately. Yeah.
Jared:There was a video that I watched on YouTube where these guys were celebrating the birth of the personal camcorder, like the ones that would record on VHS tapes, and they did an entire video using those camcorders. So the quality was like NTSC, like it was super, like four by three, really scan lines, everything else, but they had quality audio,
Jacob Lashuay:and it
Jared:made all the difference in the world. So that's, to me, shows the importance of good audio, because if it was flipped and they just used you've seen videos on social media that, like, where the person's mic is just their phone mic, and they're across the room when they're trying to do an ad, it's like, you hear all the noise. I'm like, I don't respect anything that you do now because of this. That's because I'm from Mr. L's tutelage though, and he taught me well.
Jacob Lashuay:Well, that brings up a good point too. Like, when you're on social media and you're scrolling through where most of the videos have quality audio and then you get to one that has bad audio, like, that definitely makes it stand out. Yeah. You know? Definitely.
Rob:And not in a good way.
Jacob Lashuay:Right, yeah. Same with video production too, but yeah, audio just definitely makes a big difference. And in our context with education where you can't deliver the content without speaking it, that definitely makes a big difference.
Jared:Yeah, for sure.
Rob:So, what would you say to folks who, you know, maybe they have an opportunity to have I mean, because not a lot of people have, you know, instructors have a lot of equipment or maybe they don't have a CTL that has production house like we have. I'm not saying we're the best at it because I think you and I both agree. Like if you can think of your most favorite movie, right?
Jared:That'd be something Star Wars for Jacob.
Rob:Yeah. Star Wars definitely
Jacob Lashuay:up there.
Jared:Yep. Unfortunately, but
Rob:You know you know how many people it takes to pull something like that off when you wait for the credits and they start rolling and you start reading all those names. For those of us who don't have access to those kinds of production houses where everybody is so much involvement. What's something that most folks can do? Or what would you say to them to encourage them to find or bring around people that could potentially help them produce really good, enhanced media?
Jacob Lashuay:Well, something that you and I have talked about before in the office is this idea of good, better and best. I kind of described the good already, you know? The standard laptop situation with the webcam and the internal mic of the computer. You can still make a good video that way. But I think that what we want to strive to do is that better category.
Jacob Lashuay:And in that category, that's where I would suggest if you have the opportunity to invest in different equipment that could help, I think that'd go a long way.
Rob:So where would you put your biggest investment? Where would you tell people? If you're going to invest some money, where should they invest it?
Jacob Lashuay:Well, we just got done talking about how important audio is. You definitely want to get a quality microphone if you have the opportunity to. One that we have that's fairly affordable is a Blue Yeti mic.
Rob:So you like the Blue Yeti?
Jacob Lashuay:Yeah, Jared mentioned the Anchorworks. Those are also some Bluetooth mics that clip onto your shirt, onto your collar.
Rob:Is the Yeti wireless?
Jacob Lashuay:Blue Yeti is not. It is a desk mic. So it'd be good if you were sitting at a desk doing most of your videos or what kind And how does it stuff connect? Like Connects just standard USB to your computer, so you don't need additional audio mixing equipment and things like that. You just select that audio input on your computer and it works great.
Jacob Lashuay:So that'd be an option too. But even an iPhone, I mean I tell people all the time, technology that we have today, even the cheaper stuff, is a whole lot better than it was twenty years ago. And so a standard iPhone, video and audio, does a great job and would definitely suffice for the type of production that most faculty want to do on their own time.
Rob:So the iPhone for you would fit in like the better category?
Jacob Lashuay:I would say so, at least the newer ones in the past five years or so. And then from there, if you have an Apple computer, can AirDrop that video file to the computer. Or if you don't have an Apple computer, there's other ways you could upload it to OneDrive or Google Drive.
Jared:You can actually pull up your iCloud drive on a Windows machine as well so if you upload it to your iCloud on an iPhone you could
Jacob Lashuay:just a Mac pull it user so I don't know these things.
Jared:I bridge the gap
Rob:every now and then so.
Jacob Lashuay:Alright. Yeah, just go back to we live in a day and age where there is quality video and audio that's not obscenely expensive that is fairly reasonable that would go a long way.
Rob:And what would you say to someone if they're wanting to step towards that best category?
Jacob Lashuay:That's where, so here at Cedarville, you know, the CTL we have myself doing the media production, Lauren who's helping with script writing, others who are involved with the production side of things as well too, and we're here to help and serve the faculty with the course design as you guys have talked about a lot before. So if you have a CTL, if you're not here at Cedar Hill and you are at a different institution with a CTL that has media production, definitely utilize them or at least start having conversations with what do they have to offer. And if you don't have a CTL or somebody who does media production, you may want to reach out to a third party outside of your institution. Maybe conversations can be had about starting a CTL. I know that's not necessarily an easy thing to just start right off the bat, but I do think it goes a long way to have quality studio production in your courses and if that's an opportunity that your institution has, could be something to pursue.
Jared:Something else you consider, and this is what I did when I was looking for cameras of my own to use for online stuff and also for my own video production, is just do a YouTube search for best cameras for vlogging or whatever, and then you get to see the quality of it because the good users and the good researchers and the people making these videos will use each of the cameras and each lens or whatever. Mhmm. So if you wanna do it on your own and you're looking for something that's cost efficient, you can just, I mean YouTube is a great resource for that. Yeah. And then if you wanna do that yourself and not worry about relying on others to help you out with that.
Jacob Lashuay:Yeah, and if you wanna do it yourself, there's lots of programs. You know, I use the Adobe Creative Cloud Suite, has Adobe Premiere for video editing, Adobe Audition for audio. That is the industry standard, it's definitely more advanced. I don't necessarily have the expectation that faculty should learn it, but if you have the opportunity to play around with those tools, they're very powerful, can be very effective. But one thing that's beneficial about reaching out to a CTL or hiring a third party vendor or somewhere like that is that faculty are the content experts, they're not necessarily the audiovisual experts.
Jacob Lashuay:And so having a CTL help produce your content frees you up to do other things and to focus on your content. I'm not the content expert when I'm making these educational videos but working in tandem with the professor and building these videos, writing the scripts, me providing production advice into these videos and how we deliver the content just helps I think free them up a little bit more to focus on what they want to do and then hopefully everybody wins. They have a video that produces the content that they want and we produce that in a way that I think is really engaging to students. Mean one of my goals as the instructional media producer here at the CTL is trying to find ways to be as engaging as possible in how we reach our students. Know, because I know that it's educational material and it's not like we're making movies here.
Jacob Lashuay:But hopefully we can make our content in such a way that is interesting, engaging, and ultimately helps the students learn in a better way. That's great.
Rob:Yeah. I have say one of the things that Jacob has done is just the use of multiple camera angles. And I've noticed anyway with some of the videos when he's doing just headshots or, know, instead of doing animations, that's another a whole another topic that we really even haven't talked about that he does Yep. In terms of media as animation, voice over animations, and those kinds of things. You need somebody with a CTL, you know, to do that.
Rob:Yeah. They have those third party apps out there that do quote unquote do those kinds of things.
Jacob Lashuay:Mhmm.
Rob:But you do need somebody that is professional in those areas to help you get the most out of those kinds of products. So, yeah, use them, but you really do need professionals around you if you're wanting to go towards that best getting from between better and best.
Jared:Something else you could consider, this is the One Button Studios, which I've talked about before. They were kind of a trendy thing about five years ago. I'm not sure if they're still. But the One Button Studios where it's set up some universities have it set up to where there's a camera, there's lighting, there's a green screen behind you, and you just go in and you put in your media or your USB drive and hit one button and it records for you, and you can connect your computer to it and have your PowerPoint going. You can record everything together.
Jared:So there could be an opportunity for if you don't have a CTL, utilizing a one button studio if you have it or putting together one. Again, there's plenty of YouTube videos. Oh, gonna for build that as well.
Jacob Lashuay:Keep it simple because it can get very complicated, you know, into the work that I'm doing, and most faculty are not interested in that. Some of them are, but a lot are not, and nor should they be.
Jared:It's Right.
Jacob Lashuay:What they're here for.
Rob:So Yeah. Thanks for sharing that, Jacob. It's been very helpful.
Jared:Yeah. Yeah. Thank you, Jacob. Thanks for
Jacob Lashuay:having me on. I appreciate
Ryan:Thanks for joining this episode of Transform Your Teaching. If you have any questions about making better media in your courses, feel free to reach out to us at ctlpodcast@cedarville.edu. You can also connect with us on LinkedIn. And don't forget to check out our blog at cedarville.edu/focusblog. Thanks for listening.