Recorded Webinar/Masterclass/Info Session

A webinar/masterclass/info session is a 30-60-minute video seminar that is pre-recorded and shared in a community within your Wisr site. The goal of a webinar can vary widely. Examples include providing important presentations, hosting info sessions and sample classes, or explaining aspects of campus life, etc. A subject matter expert should host your webinar. This may be a staff or faculty member, or even a student. Generally, your webinars should consist of 1-2 hosts and a presentation.

Tech needed:

Required:

o External Mic

o External Webcam

o Zoom Pro

Optional:

o Lighting

o Green screen

To create a recorded webinar, follow these steps:

1. Identify the who, what, when, why, and where of your webinar.

a. These webinars can easily replace lectures, fireside chats, etc. that may have previously taken place as a live event. When deciding to create a webinar, it’s important to understand which community you will post this in, what information is most relevant to your community members, when you intend to publish it, and who is best suited to lead the webinar.

b. When using Wisr to host webinars, we recommend either using pre-recorded content or recording a live webinar once and posting it for later viewing.

2. Set up your recording area/studio

a. To ensure you’re not interrupted by loud noises or distractions, we encourage you to find a quiet, well-lit room with little to no background noise. If possible, turn off any fans, AC units, or heating systems and place a “Do Not Disturb” sign on your door so your recording is not interrupted. You may also want to consider switching your computer and phone to “Do Not Disturb” mode.

b. If you’re using a lighting system (like a ring light) set that up and make sure there are no shadows or unwanted glare. Plug your external mic and webcam into your computer. c. We recommend using a second monitor when recording your video session. A second monitor allows you to record the screen share of your presentation while also viewing speaker notes.

3. Launch a Zoom meeting room

a. First, make sure your input audio and video are sourcing from your external microphone and camera. In the bottom left corner next to the microphone icon, click the up arrow and select your mic from the available list of options. Follow the same instructions for selecting your video source.

b. Close all windows on your computer except for your presentation and Zoom. Click the “Record” button and select either the local or cloud recording option depending on what you prefer (cloud recording will be stored in your online account and local recording will be stored on the computer it is recorded on).

c. Click the green “Share” button and select your desktop. Once you’ve shared your presentation you should see a green boarder around your screen. What is within this border will be visible in the video recording.

4. Do your presentation a. We recommend making it through your presentation in one shot. It’s ok if you make mistakes here and there – it’s expected and authentic! It will complicate the process if you plan to record multiple takes and cut them together – avoid that headache if you can.

5. End the meeting a. When you’ve completed your presentation and are ready to stop recording, click on the “More” button at the top of your screen and select “End Meeting.” You will receive a popup notification to “end meeting for all,” select that.

6. Final editing a. If needed, you can use basic video editing tools already on your computer to trim the start and end of your recording. On a Mac it’s easy to use QuickTime Player and for PC, Windows Movie Maker should come standard.

7. Upload your video to YouTube or Wistia and embed in a Wisr community discussion

a. When posting to YouTube you’ll need to decide if this is a listed or unlisted video. Listed videos can be found through search on YouTube, whereas unlisted videos are only accessible if you have the link (or the link is embedded in your discussion). After you’ve posted your video to YouTube, copy the video link to your clipboard.

b. When posting to Wistia you have the ability to control several custom settings. Take some time to explore the “Customize” panel after uploading your video. If this is required viewing for your community members make sure to enable the Turnstile option.

c. In your Wisr community go to the Discussions tab and click the + button to create a new Topic.

d. Fill out the topic title section keeping in mind that discussions are searchable, so you’ll want to name your Topic the same or something similar to the breakout session/masterclass/info session.

e. In the Description section include any intro/outro text. Wherever you want your video to embed click the hyperlink button and paste the video link into the URL bar. You will see a button appear that says “Looks like you are trying to add a video?” select “Yes, Add Video.”

8. Select the “Create topic” button and your topic will be live with an embedded video!