What is Camtasia?

Camtasia is an easy and quick-to-learn screen recording and video editing software that allows the creation of interactive videos for any device to increase knowledge sharing and boost engagement.

It will record anything that appears on your screen, producing an intermediate file that can be edited for length, audio adjustment, and visual elements. Users can combine multiple video clips and still images into a single exportable video file. For PowerPoint users, Camtasia integrates with the Windows version of PowerPoint for a seamless recording experience.

 

Camtasia features and uses

• Add videos to an online course.
  • Provide access to content for students who are unable to attend a synchronous classroom session
  • Provide repeatability for students working in highly distracting environments
• Create interactive charts and graphics with links that allow learners to further investigate topics from one central page.
• Create opportunities to check for understanding
  • Use questions between slides to assess understanding and provide feedback.
• Provide step-by-step instructions or tutorials for tasks that may be difficult to explain without a visual example.

How to get Camtasia

Camtasia requires a license for personal, professional, or educational use.

• One-time license cost - keep using version 2023 as long as your operating system allows
• One license per user - install on 2 machines
• Compatible with Windows and MacOS
• Optional Maintenance renewal for updates
• FREE Upgrade to the next version
• Phone, chat and email support
• Access to Camtasia Certification with 20+ exclusive how-to videos

Videos are used widely in every level of education, but not all are used well. Extensive research shows that effective educational videos help learners make meaningful connections between words and images (Clark & Mayer, 2016). The key to achieving this synergy between visual and auditory learning is to focus students’ cognitive load on essential content. This guide briefly summarizes the cognitive theory of multimedia learning and provides recommendations from evidence-based practice on how to maximize the learning impact of videos in NPS courses.

When learners pay attention to images, sounds, or other sensory inputs, the information enters first into sensory memory, which lasts only about 30 seconds (Mayer, 2020). By focusing attention, learners then select some of this for temporary storage and processing in working memory, which typically persists for 5-7 minutes and has extremely limited capacity. Organizing new information and integrating it with previous learning allows encoding and consolidation in long-term memory, which has much greater capacity and enables the learner to retain new knowledge, apply new skills, and create meaning.

The cognitive load theory of learning (Sweller, Ayers, & Kalyuga, 2011) models how learners acquire and process information from sensory experience into long-term retention. Cognitive load describes the burden or “workload” of information processing in a learners’ working memory. Learning experiences involve three types of cognitive load:
 

• Extraneous cognitive load - Filtering out noise and selecting material into working memory
• Intrinsic cognitive load - Breaking down complex material and reorganizing
• Germane cognitive load - Integrating new material to create meaningful learning

To maximize student learning, any educational experience should aim to eliminate extraneous cognitive processing, reduce intrinsic cognitive processing, and stimulate germane cognitive processing.

Mayer’s cognitive theory of multimedia learning (Mayer, 2020) emphasizes that educational content enters and is processed in memory through one of two channels. Spoken words enter the auditory/verbal channel through the ears, while images and written words both enter the visual/pictorial channel through the eyes. Effective educational use of media, and particularly video, facilitates the ability of both channels to work together in parallel and avoids “channel interference,” which occurs when text must compete with images for learner’s attention. Deep learning and construction of meaning occurs when learners mentally construct connections between words and images (Clark and Mayer, 2016).

The principles of cognitive theory, and practical experience in both traditional and virtual higher education classrooms, yield four principles for creating impactful educational videos: signaling, segmenting, weeding, and matching modality (Ibrahim et al., 2012; Brame, 2015).

Signaling

On-screen text, shapes, or symbols can highlight the most important information presented in a video. Signaling helps learners focus their attention on key words and images to select into working memory, reducing extraneous cognitive processing, and to make connections between them, stimulating germane cognitive processing (deKoning et al., 2009).

Segmenting

A strong body of evidence supports the division of content into small segments that learners can easily attend to, remember, comprehend, and apply toward learning goals (Clark & Mayer, 2016). This strategy of segmentation, or chunking, of content reduces intrinsic cognitive load. Chunking is a key to success in any mode of learning but is critical for distance learning.

Weeding

Many images and sounds in video can catch the eye or please the ear without contributing to the video’s educational impact. Background music, attention-getting footage, or long verbal asides can increase extraneous cognitive load by distracting students from material directly relevant to the goals of a course.

While the most effective length for a video varies with its content and objectives, learner engagement with videos usually declines quite dramatically after six minutes (Guo et al., 2014). The drop-off in learner attention is especially pronounced with videos of lectures or other formats primarily featuring people speaking to an audience or to each other. Brame (2015) concludes that “Making videos longer than 6–9 minutes is probably wasted effort.” To keep students focused, try to keep videos short and to the point, consider creating focused “micro-lectures,” and minimize “talking head” footage.

Matching Modality

Students learn better from a combination of words and images, but when words and images are used at the same time, the words should be spoken rather than printed (Clark & Mayer, 2016). Narration explaining a concept or talking students through a process, combined with animation or images illustrating the content, creates an optimal combination of verbal and visual information.

On-screen text can be effective in videos, particularly for labeling images and introducing students to terminology. However, text appearing on screen at the same time as an image on which students should focus increases extraneous cognitive load and hampers germane processing. Similarly, a “talking head” image of someone speaking can be distracting unless the connection between the speech and the speaker is an important element of content.

Create a quality video using Camtasia software

Create visually engaging videos using existing Zoom or other recorded footage

Create videos with learning interactions

Improve quality: Advanced tips and tricks

NEC (NPS Extended Campus) is Here to Help

Contact the NEC Instructional Design Team for advice on creating and using videos in traditional or distance learning courses.