When I started making these videos, as I have mentioned before, I was a little reluctant to listen to myself speaking on the videos and avoided it for the first few that I made.

I quickly realized that I needed to be doing some voice overs in order to get better instruction over the interweb waves to my students and had to suck it up.

Here are a few things that I wish I would have known before I started…but figured out along the way 🙂 discovery learning at it’s finest!

1. Record in small chunks – that way if you mess up, you don’t have to re-record too much – I do VERY small chunks – maybe just a sentence or two at a time and time that audio correctly with the video element.

2. Take notes if you need to about what you are wanting to say – that way, when you get distracted (like I often do) you can use your notes to keep you on track.

3. Record in a quiet place. Once I started recording myself, I wanted it to sound as good as my iPad could make it happen for me. This may have made me a little crazy…I would re-record a segment if, for example, my dog started chewing on his squeaky toy at the end. I would re-record if a door closed on my recording or if my dinner timer went off. I tried to be a big girl about it and record in an airport once and just could not do it. I may have a little obsessive problem with my students distraction level (probably because I am right there with them) but I like to record in a quiet room by myself and have had positive results with that procedure.

4. Do the voice over last – do all of your animation or pictures in the order you want them to be in first while sort of mapping out what you want to say. This makes the voice over recording process very quick at the end!

1. I just need to reiterate number 1. again. Record in small chunks!!! Do it. You can thank me later – especially if you get a little obsessive like I did.