At the time of me writing this post the world is battling the coronavirus pandemic. In the United States many educators are learning to adapt to deliver their material in an online format.
I’m here to make it hopefully just a little bit easier by teaching you how you can use loom to record videos for your lectures and even for feedback.
You have two options to use loom. If you’re using chrome, the new Microsoft edge, or the security focus brave browser you’ll be able to install it via an extension. Otherwise you’d have to install the desktop application.
Installing Loom
You can find both of those via the loom website where you can create an account using your personal gmail account, but if you’re an educator or even a student you can get the pro plan by using your school email.
All you need to do is click the get loom for free button. Hit sign up with google or type your email.
Once you’ve signed up you’ll then be greeted with the extension installer or desktop app download for my example I chose the app download.
Once it’s downloaded and you’ve launched it. It’ll be in your menu tray. You’ll need to log in with your email account. Once you’ve got it installed and you’ve gone through and granted it the security and privacy permissions it needs. You’re are now ready to film something.
Filming
You have three options screen and cam, screen only and cam only.
You also have multiple screen recording options. Full screen, window and custom. You then have the options to choose your webcam. This is important if you have or use an external webcam. You then have your audio setting. This is important if you are using an external microphone like I am.
Remember that a good audio recording is key when creating content for education. Because if your students can’t hear you or have tough time it can really be a struggle for them to understand what you’re telling them. So, if you do not have a microphone. Be in a quiet room. Speak up and clearly. Now back to the video.
While you record your video you also have three tools available to you on the left had side of your screen.
You have stop which stops the video.
You have pause/start recording, trash video, and then annotations.
Editing and Sharing
Once you record your video you will be taken to the video in loom. Where it will begin to process. Which can take some time depending on the length of the video. ON this page you can do a variety of things.
The first thing I recommend is to change the name of the video. You do that by double click on the default title and type the new name.
You also have the option to download the video, duplicate the video (this might be useful if you do the same video for multiple class sections but want to each class to have their own place to respond.) Delete, and share which is where you can find the embed option and is fantastic for adding in canvas.
Loom has also made it extremely easy to share the video via a link that can have different settings.
The last few settings are things you can do to touch up your video. So, in settings you can turn off varies things like comments and emoji reactions as well as the animated thumbnail which I find cool, as well as if viewers can download the video which I prefer to turn off.
You can also trim which is great if the beginning and ending of your video struggled a little which is normal!
The last two are call-to-action and thumbnail which for your purposes you don’t really need but I encourage you to test those out.
Okay so there you have it a breakdown of what loom is and how to make a video.
In the next video I’m going to share a few tips on how to make effective videos.
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