5 steps to build an engaging online learning video

4/17/2023

Online learning has been popular for a long time, especially in the Covid 19 pandemic’s crisis.

This is also the most powerful way for teachers to spread their valuable knowledge anywhere, even in distant parts of the world. Teaching and learning online are the door that opens up potential business opportunities.

However, if your online lesson is not engaging enough, it can’t remain learners’ concentration. To ensure this doesn’t happen, let’s explore 5 steps to help you build an interesting online lesson.

1. Content is King

Everything comes from the content. No matter how beautiful your video is, if your content is boring or doesn’t provide helpful information, everything else is meaningless.

You can build your lesson into a story; each part of the story conveys different lesson content. Make sure you have indeed knowledge of what you will share to find out interesting points, and new things that students may need.

In addition, the online lesson construction should also be different for each student group. For example, when building an online lesson for primary school children, you should add lots of illustrations and colorful colors. But when you design online lectures for adults, easy-to-understand examples are the core element.

You can refer to other teachers’ lessons to brainstorm ideas for your lessons.

2. Don’t make it long

One inconvenience of online learning is the lack of interaction between teachers and learners, resulting in less concentration. Research shows that a student can only focus on a lecture or an educational video for about 5 to 10 minutes, then their attention may be diverted due to the distracting environment or boredom.

Therefore, creating short videos to raise learners’ attention is the solution. Focus on only 1 to 5 primary points in the lecture, which is important to remember.

Then, develop your lecture around those main points. In each main point, you should list down theses to extend your lesson. However, don’t make your video too rambling.

5 steps to build an engaging online learning video

Creating short videos to raise learners’ attention is the solution

3. Use different angles, camera movements

To make online lectures less boring, instead of placing the camera at one angle from beginning to end, you can use many different angles, camera movements, apply close-ups and transitions.

Different camera angles will create flexibility and highlight the main ideas in the lesson, making it easier for learners to absorb what you say. The background is another factor you need to keep in mind. Your workspace or a soundproof room is the best place for shooting.

You can change your background according to each vital point of the lesson. Using a flat background only can be boring for learners. If possible, you should shoot outdoors (walking and talking, setting up the camera angle by the window, etc.) to create a new look for your video.

Take advantage of virtual backgrounds if you don’t want to shoot outdoors. This is a great help to save your time and efforts.

To enhance the feeling of interaction with learners, you should practice rehearsing the script, trying to learn by heart the lesson’s main points. If you remember everything you’re going to say, you can focus more on eye contact with the camera instead of only looking at the slides to read.

4. Add effects, graphics to videos

Music and effects are the significant pluses to help you create an engaging video lecture. You can add 3D images, appropriate illustrations to emphasize an important point in the lecture.

We are often attracted to visual content rather than written content. So, adding extra spice to your videos helps you maintain your lectures’ competition.

However, don’t over-add effects. For example, using sad music, sound effects unrelated to the lecture, or over-editing makes your video look corny and unprofessional.

5. Add subtitles to online learning videos

To reach more learners, or sell your online learning videos to a wider customer group from multinational markets, subtitles are an essential part.

Subtitles for videos have become increasingly popular, as more and more people watch videos on smartphones and high-tech devices.

According to some statistics, more than 85% of Facebook audience feels uncomfortable watching videos with sound only, and they prefer to watch videos with subtitles instead.

Pretend that you watch a video with shrill background music in the middle of the night, or while having breakfast with your family. Surely you may be startled, or you will suffer from your parents’ complaints.

So, adding automatic subtitles to videos is a new step to approach your learners more subtly. Automatic subtitles not only save you time and effort in translating videos, but it also ensures the accurate version of text caption, unlike when you use human-added subtitles.

Thanks to Motionbear automatic subtitles tool, you can translate your videos into more than 30 languages with great accuracy. Motionbear only takes you minutes or hours of translation instead of days or weeks.

As a result, you can make your lectures accessible to more learners around the world and remain local learners’ interest, who prefer watching subtitled videos to listening to noisy videos.

Follow these simple steps to use Motionbear to add subtitles to your videos:

Drag and drop videos from your computer, cloud, or drive;
Select the original language you speak in the video;
Wait for the translation in some minutes;
After generating subtitles, you can download your video and ensure the quality of the subtitles.

In a few minutes, you’ve made your video accessible to different learners.

Making engaging online learning videos is not easy, but if you apply these 5 tips well, you can certainly create videos that win thousands of viewers.

The most crucial factor to consider is the content. Because the content will retain the audience. In addition, choose a neat, clean background, change the filming location flexibly, add effects and eye-catching graphics. Importantly, don’t forget to add subtitles to the video so that it reaches a broader audience.