By:Our Fearless Leader
In the age of the Internet and Social Media it’s fairly easy to Google keywords or phrases and find hundreds of related articles, images, and videos. So why is it so hard to find instructions on how to create an effective educational outreach video? Is it some sort of best-kept marketing secret? I typed “how to create an effective educational outreach video” into the Google search bar and only two relevant results popped up. In the words of one of Gav’s Math instructors, that means…more work. Thanks Google. So I did my research and watched a bunch of educational videos about small-scale gardening, black holes, climate change, and the social hierarchy of elephants. In the following paragraphs, I’ll do my best to highlight some important elements of an effective educational outreach video based on my pretty amateur internet sleuthing.
Without delving into all the science (it’s a lot), there are generally four elements that influence the effectiveness of an educational outreach video. These are duration, format, visual (aides & references), and audio. For a really comprehensive deep-dive into elements like best speaking rate and vocal cues, see this paper by Cynthia J. Brame, published in the Life Sciences Education Journal.
Duration.
2 to 6 minutes is the
sweet-spot. Brame specifies that each video should be less than or
equal to 6 minutes in length. This was confirmed by the only other
relevant google search result. It’s a paper by a group of undergrads
and professors from the University of Arizona who conducted a
project
to create astronomy-related educational videos. They found that 2-6
minutes was satisfactory. Apparently, anything longer than that is
just an invitation to nap.
Format.
For many informative, “what is…” videos, the general
format is the following:
Visual.
Visual aides in these types of videos are used to
emphasize, summarize, relate, organize, or illustrate important
ideas. Types of important visual aids include:
Audio.
If you’re an introvert or generally a private person,
the following is bad news. In every educational outreach video I’ve
seen, there is always a narrator. Always. Time to invest in a great
quality voice changer or bribe an extravert to do the job! So here
are the important audio elements to include:
That’s it! We’re all set to create educational outreach videos and take over the world!
Published July 22, 2021 By GearClub
By:Our Fearless Leader
GEAR Club’s Smart Sustainable Garden Project (SSGP) is a synchronized group effort to create a proof-of-concept mobile garden utilizing a suite of sensors and associated app to help increase the efficiency of the garden. The SSGP is currently in Phase 1 of its 3-phase lifecycle. In Phase 1 the club is working to develop a smart, sustainable proof-of-concept garden for a future large-scale version at Gavilan. In Phase 2 we will build the large-scale garden (this will require the involvement of the administration at Gavilan College). Our club and Gavilan’s Student Government are planning to raise the funds for Phase 2 in the next three academic years. In Phase 3 we will invite Gavilan’s community to use the garden and help us maintain it.
In its current phase, the SSGP focuses on four major components:
1. Sustainability
2. Garden Design & Construction
3. App Design & Construction
4. Education & Outreach
The first component, Sustainability, is applied throughout the entire project to include the remaining three components. It carries enormous weight in decisions on material, design, construction, and location. The project aims to have the least negative impact on the environment as possible, given our resource and time constraint.
The second component, Garden Design & Construction, is governed by the first component as stated above. It involves research, problem scoping, scaling, modeling, constructing CAD designs, 3-D printing, testing, and actually building the garden.
The third component, App Design & Construction is primarily focused on building code to interface with the sensor suite and turning that code into something user-friendly for current and future garden-caretakers.
The fourth component, Education & Outreach not only refers to the education of others but also to the education of the team. This component involves research, presentations, discussions, networking, website-building, writing, and community-building activities.
Published July 8, 2021 By Our Fearless Leader