Virtual+Activity+Video

=Virtual Activity Video - A Guided Tour = This assignment was geared to use the Wimba Classroom in order to create an instructional video for our Virtual Classroom assignment. The video had to be relevant to some aspect of our virtual classroom. The final product was to be downloaded as an MP4 file. To make the video a little more user accessible, it was uploaded to screencast and a link was placed were needed. Have the file available as a link also enabled its incorporation into the announcements, were files can not be uploaded.

**Creating the Guided Tour Video **
 Too often, the level of a students computer knowledge is assumed. Although this is considered an online class, the content of the course is not technology driven. For this reason, I chose to create a tour of the virtual environment. Using this along with other warm-up activities found in the Starting Line (The section designation for pre-course activities), both the student and teacher will be able to find out if the enrolled students have the computer skills needed to succeed in this course.

**Reflection **
The ability to create video content for an online course is essential. If an online course is not multimedia based then the students should skip the course and read textbooks. The only way to cater a course to my own specific needs is to create all of the content. Unfortunately, the resulting course has a very singular view. We owe it to our students to provide a diversity of opinions when we teach. The solution is to create content drawn from diverse sources. We have explored many different video capture software which enables us to video on-screen material. I have been a little frustrated in these endeavors.

My educational background before teaching was in video production. My graduate thesis specifically dealt with instructional video. The instructional videos I created were broadcast quality in both content and production value. The videos I am creating now do not stand up to those standards. Obviously, I must sacrifice some production quality because the file sizes of those videos would be way too big to be practical for download. I need to find a way to produce videos at the content quality I would feel proud to put my name on. The secret is to find production software capable of producing the videos I can see in my head without breaking the bank. = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =A Guided Tour =