Even in this day and age of remarkable innovations in education technology, videos remain one of the fundamental and critical ingredients. In the realm of online learning, we come across many types of videos. The most popular, dynamic format is called Instructor-led Training (ILT) which uses Instructor-led Videos (ILVs) to deliver content. Let’s have briefly discuss this and other popular formats:

1. Instructor-led Videos (ILVs): ILVs are the most common training format used in creating self-paced learning courses. In this format, an instructor speaks directly to the camera (and thus the online learner) about a topic with plenty of audio and visual aids. Such effects assist and enhance the learning experience and can be of many types. This format uses the best of human presence and technology to create an optimum learning experience. Good examples include most YouTube coaching videos.
   
   A more basic version of ILVs may have the entire teaching happening through the instructor without much or any visual effects. This is effective when you have a star presenter (like a famous actor or field expert) whose presence is enough to grab the attention of the learner. Good examples include acting masterclasses, expert interviews, and panel discussions.
   
   

2. Animation-led videos: These are fully animated videos that cover a given subject entirely through voiceover and animation, without an onscreen persona. Good examples include Ted-Ed and Kurzgesagt videos on YouTube, and many children’s education videos. Such videos often combine imaginative animation sequences with an engaging narration to introduce, discuss, or analyze a topic.
   
   

3. Narrator-led videos: These videos too do not have an on-screen persona to interact with learners, but here the visuals used are live-action footage, either stock or self-recorded, to complement the narration. Here the instruction is more contemplative than concrete. Such techniques are often employed by YouTube channels that deal with social and spiritual topics, where visuals are merely suggestive.
   
   

4. Detail-led videos: Such videos use close-up recordings of an expert performing an experiment or demonstrating a process in close detail often with voice guidance. This is most commonly used to show scientific experiments in a laboratory setting, or a DIY craftwork. It is also used in cooking videos and unboxing videos. Such videos can have short introductory or summary clips with the speaker showing their face.

Depending on the field and content of learning, there can potentially be many more types of videos used in online learning, but for most intents and purposes, these four suffice as a good starting point. Among these, the most recommended is the Instructor-led video (or ILV, as called henceforth) as it deftly balances the presence of a human educator with audio-visual enhancements for learner engagement. An ILV is produced in three broad stages:

Pre-production: This stage involves the creation of a lesson plan and an ILV script.

1. A lesson plan is an educator’s intended plan for a given class or training session. It helps you decide the time and scope of a topic coverage, which props to use, what to discuss with learners, when and which examples to give, and so on. Such planning is crucial to ensure that you stick to your or your organization’s curriculum. In an online learning mode, your lesson plan can have the above mentioned details, along with visual aids, use of summary screens, charts, graphs, and so on.
   
   

2. An ILV script builds upon the lesson plan and lays down the actual content you will be using while recording. It should contain two important details: the speech and the visuals. Your speech includes more than just your words. It also includes voice modulations, pitch and pace variations, your pauses, which words or phrases to highlight, and so on. Your visuals should serve to complement your words using graphics, animation, and onscreen text. We will discuss visual design in more depth in one of our future posts, but for now, try to think of it as providing learners ready-made mental imagery to go along with your speech.

A lesson plan should be treated as a plan only and not a replacement of the script. Do not spend more than a couple of hours on the lesson plan for a 10-minute video. The bulk of pre-production time should be spent on the ILV script, which can take anywhere between 4 hours to a couple of days, depending on how richly detailed your content and visuals are. Your ILV script is your final document you will use while recording. If you are working with other teams like voiceover artists, graphic designers, animators, music composers, this is the artifact you will be sharing with them.

Production: In this stage, the actual audiovisual recording happens. You can do this at home with a simple mic and camera set-up. You can use a few props based on your educational content like a whiteboard, a book, a chart, and so on. For more sophisticated videos with a higher budget, you can also book a studio and production crew. If you are hiring actors to record your content, voice or video, then you don’t have to do much in this phase unless you want to supervise and actively facilitate the recording. The end product of this stage is raw footage. Typically, there would be multiple takes and few versions of a given scene or segment.

Post-production: This is where the magic happens basically. Using the raw footage, you select and organize the video clips you have recorded. This is also the stage where you add sound effects like background music and visual effects like on-screen text and motion graphics. The scope of these effects could be basic monotony breakers to extremely advanced attention grabbers. It all depends on the time and budget you have to produce this content, and also what your audience expects. The end product of this stage is the final video ready to upload on your channel, social media account, public profile, or LMS (Learning Management System).

Now you have a working idea of video formats and ILV process, so we will next discuss some key ingredients of an ILV. Stay tuned!