What does a technical course look like? Screencast and Video

MarkLassoff

HI everyone:

In today's instructor coffee chat, there was a conversation about "what a technical course looks like-- is it just a screencast?"

I thought, in response, it would be helpful to show what I do.

For context, I published my first course on Udemy in 2011. Please don't let this video intimidate you-- the most important thing is for you to come across as a human being who can communicate clearly and cares. The rest is aesthetics-- nice to have but not critical.

I like to think of a course video as a series of scene. I'll post a few images of scene I use in sequence and then provide a link to the entire video.

001: Tease: Get the Student Interested in the Video

002: Opening Google Sheets (Notice that the screen is enlarged to ensure someone watching on mobile can see what I'm doing)

003: Split Screen: Explaining what we are going to be doing-- Notice the tool I'm talking about is on the screen along with me as the instructor

004 Screencast: Back to the screencast, enlarged, I start demonstrating the skill that is the focus of the video.

005: Screencast with annotation-- Here, I demonstrate how a cell is addressed by column and row number.

006: Another variation of split-screen to explain column labels

007: Back to the enlarged screencast to complete the activity

008: Back to split screen to wrap up. Notice I use lower third graphics to identify the course section and myself.

The total running time for this video is four minutes, so we're shifting to a new "scene" just about every 30 seconds. This helps with engagement, makes the video less boring, and helps me, as the instructor, seem more human and forge a relationship with the viewer.

Here's the full video:

Since I know people are curious, here's the equipment and software used to create this:

Sony ZV-1f Camera

Boya Shotgun Microphone

Neewer NL660 LED Light Set with Softbox

Two Logitech Letra LED Streaming Lights

U-Phoria UM2 Analog to Digital Audio Interface

USB-C Video Capture Card

Mac Mini M1

Software: Camtasia

Please let me know if you have questions or ideas, or would like feedback on something you're doing.

Best,
Mark

Bella

Hey @MarkLassoff
, this post is fantastic! Thank you for sharing your process and equipment for creating technical courses. It's clear that you've put a lot of thought and effort into your videos, and I appreciate you taking the time to provide examples for those interested in creating similar content.

I'm sure your tips and insights will be helpful to others looking to create technical courses, and I encourage anyone with questions or ideas to share them in the thread -- let's keep this discussion going!

Bella Almeida

Udemy Community