CC:pixabay.com/dawnfu

Media is an ideal way of getting a message across and has become ubiquitous with the easy access to streaming servers such as YouTube. Videos, photos, maps, diagrams and graphs can convey complex ideas and can give a written message more impact. Media also encompasses images, audio and animations. As mentioned previously when using any type of media, it is good practice to be mindful of its purpose in relation to your learning and teaching aims.

• When it comes to images, the smaller the size, the better. Scale images and save them in the correct file formats (png, jpg, gif). If you add images to Word or PPT you can reduce the file size by looking in the ‘File’ menu.
• Always provide equivalent alternatives to the visual content for accessibility, for example a text description of an image (as this can be read by screen reader software).
• Check the copyright of your image and attribute accordingly. Use Creative Commons to find shareable images.
• Make sure that transcripts of the video or audio are available, again for accessibility reasons. YouTube can create automatic transcriptions (though they should be checked as they are not always accurate).
• If creating your own basic videos, it is beneficial to have them formatted in the following way: size of 640×480, MP4 H.264, AAC-LC audio and Bit rates around 500kbps.
• Better still, upload your video to your UTS YouTube account and let YouTube do all the work!
• If you are recording voice for spoken content, there is no need for stereo. Saving a recording in mono results in a file size half that of the stereo equivalent.

You can contact Digital Media Production (DMP) at UTS who will be able to supply a generic ‘UTS logo’ video file (and a copyright file) so that branding consistency is maintained. For more detailed information about using media see: http://www.utsdigitalmedia.com