Early Bird

Canvas Spotlight: Voiceover PowerPoints

Tips for recording voiceover PowerPoints with YuJa.

By Alex McDaniel, Chelsea Posey and Nicholas Ogg

November 17, 2020

PowerPoint has the potential to be a powerful instructional tool for conveying information and teaching content. However, PowerPoints that live on their own without any context are less useful for learning. PowerPoints are most useful as a supplementary tool alongside input and context from the instructor. It would be tough to try to give a presentation or teach a class based on someone else’s PowerPoint if the content were brand-new. Similarly, students may struggle when trying to learn new content based on an instructor’s PowerPoint without the presenter being there to provide context.

A great strategy for incorporating the instructor’s context and expertise is to record a voiceover for a PowerPoint using a tool called YuJa. This will result in an asynchronous lecture or video. Not only will this strategy ensure that students are getting the correct ideas and detailed content from the PowerPoint, it will also boost instructor presence in the online course.

Best practices

• Record voiceovers for PowerPoints in YuJa to ensure that the presentation has context and instructor expertise.
• Keep voiceovers and videos to a maximum of 5 to 7 minutes to reduce extraneous load for students. Segment videos into parts based on time or topic if needed.
• Once voiceovers are completed in YuJa, embed them into Canvas for ease of access for students.

Let’s walk through it together

For complete written step-by-step instructions, head over to the CTLD Ready Spotlight page.

Have questions?

Want help on this or other teaching and learning topics? Please visit us for live support (10 a.m.-3 p.m., M-F) or try one of our self-help tutorials at www.msudenver.edu/Ready.