In this era full of interactivity, videos have become a great part of higher education. Multiple studies have shown that video can be a highly effective educational tool. The interactivity and flexibility of videos will give more appeal to students.
But how does one makes a good educational video? Well, that’s what we’re here for! Let’s get into it, shall we?
The Benefits of Educational Videos for Institutions and Brands
Educational videos are powerful because they keep learners more engaging than text or a standard lecture. Research shows they improve learning outcomes and help achieve every learning goal and learning objective.
Shorter videos under six minutes using a conversational talking head style encourage students to pause, reflect, and improve retention. In online courses, this approach makes lessons easier to follow and ensures important concepts are not quickly forget.
The impact also goes beyond the classroom. Programs like Sesame Street proved how simple story, fun examples, and colorful methods can teach kids math, science, and even engineering, inspiring child development and long term success.
With the right strategies, teachers can demonstrate practices, develop better tips, and convey difficult concepts with more depth and sense.
For institutions and brands, educational videos are a helpful method to produce content that works across multiple channels like a website, app, or social channel reaching millions.
Whether used in training, test preparation, or corporate practices, they allow exploration of space, technology, and real world problems while strengthening credibility. This versatility proves their effectiveness in moving any business or institution forward.
How to make a great educational video?
Generally speaking, there are some key points to remember when making educational videos.
To make educational content, keep in mind that you need to incorporate cognitive elements, engagement elements, and other elements that promote active elements.
With that said, you can see some of the recommendations to achieve that goal:
1. Keep it short
No need to put as much information as possible in a single video
2. Use a conversational style
Using conversational rather than formal language can impact students better.
3. Speak relatively quickly and with enthusiasm
If you want your audience to be excited to follow your video, you need to show it with your behavior on screen.
4. Make sure the material feels like it is for these students in this class
Contextualize your video for the particular class for which they are being used. You also need to pay attention to the environment of your class.
5. Use guiding questions
Use guiding questions before they watch the video, this will provide clear instruction of the purpose of watching the video for your audience.
6. Use interactive features that give students control
Interactivity on videos gives students a feeling of satisfaction and makes the learning process more fun.
7. Integrate questions into the video
This is a part of incorporating active learning. Embedded questions in video improve students’ performance more than a video without an embedded video.
Also read: Corporate Videos: Why Is It Important For Brand Awareness
Case Study: Novartis Heart Failure Education Video
SuperPixel worked for Novartis to produce an animated educational video that simplifies the complex subject of heart failure, a condition that impacts millions of people worldwide. The video explores causes, symptoms, and current treatment options in a way that is both clear and visually engaging.
The main objective was to educate patients, caregivers, and healthcare professionals on the importance of early diagnosis and proper management.
embed to video:
Through animated videos and effective visual storytelling, the content explains lifestyle changes, medications, and support systems that can improve health outcomes.
This project demonstrates how educational animation can convey complex medical concepts in an accessible way, empowering viewers with practical knowledge and strategies for healthier living.
Step-by-step of making an learning objective video
Step 1: Planning
1. Brainstorming
The first thing you need to do is to brainstorm the ideas. Find an interesting topic and make sure they fit the needs of your target audience. You can also consider making animation videos to make them more interesting and interactive.
After that, you can create your first draft of what you want to include in your video.
2. Choose Your Style
Now, you need to choose your video style. Ask yourself some of these questions:
- Do you want to embed a slideshow presentation?
- Do you want your PowerPoint slide presentations to overlap or split-screen?
- Are you going to make a video with a whiteboard in it?
So, determine your video style first before planning anything else.
3. Plan a Storyboard
You can plan your storyboard with your videographer and draw the plan you have in mind.
Things to note for each shot:
- location settings
- subject in frame
- the direction they are facing
- type of shot (close-up, wide-angle, extreme close-up, etc.)
- movement
4. Write a Script
The next step is to prepare the video script.
Use catchy wordings in your introduction, statistics, questions, jokes, analogies, or anything else that will grab your audience’s attention. When writing a script, you need to pay attention to these things:
- Be yourself
- Keep it short and simple
- Be concise and focus on the important points.
- Thank the viewers for taking the time to watch your video
- Run the script again to make sure each word is natural and you feel comfortable with the script.
Step 2: Production of Video Content
Video production can be a daunting task. However, having certain parameters in mind will help you to be more prepared and organized.
1. Exercise your script
Before you actually start, you need to exercise your script. Read the script aloud, speak slowly, and time yourself to check the length of the video.
Speak informally when using speech in the video. Make your video more personal rather than a “professional” one. You can pique your audience’s interest by making your instructor to speaks fairly quickly and passionately.
2. Consider the length of the video
Avoid long videos. Long videos will be boring and abandoned. A 3 to 5 minutes video is ideal when making an educational video. If your videos exceed that duration, you can make it into another separate part.
3. Determine video resolution
High-resolution videos are better visually. But they require high data rates on the internet, and in some cases, it may be harder for your audience to stream it. This is why you usually need to compress your videos first before uploading them to your site.
Common video resolutions that work well on the internet are:
- HD 1280×720: The quality is still relatively high, better than standard definition, but lower than Full HD.
- Standard resolution: 720×480
- Standard resolution: 640×480
- The resolution of videos commonly viewed over the Internet (e.g. YouTube) is 360p (480×360).
Step 3: Video Editing
Video editing involves several techniques, and if you’re open to learning new things, you’ll find that most video editing software has endless possibilities.
1. Audio mixing
No one likes to listen to quiet videos when learning. It will feel like they’re being lullabied to sleep! So mix your audio with a little background music, just to make it less empty. To add music to a clip, you need to separate the video clip from the audio clip.
After that, you can add your selected music and control the volume so it’s not overlapping with the main audio.
2. Green Screen Effect
When making an educational video, a green screen often becomes a needed technology to make a virtual background.
A green screen or chroma key allows you to remove some color from the video and merge two images or videos together based on the color chroma range. Keying is the process of isolating a single color, making its values transparent so that the affected area shows a different image.
This way you can overlay your video on a virtual background. For this, you will need a solid background (the most popular is a green background).
3. Voice Over
You can comment on edits that don’t have original sound or simply add a narrator dimension to your edits. Depending on the script, you can record your voice at the right moment.
4. Make it interactive
To make your videos more interactive, you can add animations such as motion graphics or even infographics.
5. Compress videos before uploading
Shorter video file sizes mean faster loading times and less buffering for the audience. With the right software, you can compress large video files to almost any format without compromising on quality.
Case Study: Introduction Video for 365 Cancer Prevention Society
Collaborted with 365 Cancer Prevention Society (365CPS) to introduce Hopey, a sunflower mascot created as a symbol of hope and support in the fight against cancer.
Through 2D animation, we crafted a heartfelt short film that follows the journey of a little girl, her grandmother, and a drooping sunflower that blossoms into Hopey.
embed to video:
The video blends cancer prevention messages with touching family moments, showing that cancer is preventable, curable, and never something to face alone.
By combining warmth, charm, and meaningful storytelling, this animated video demonstrates how mascots and visual storytelling can inspire communities and deliver powerful messages of collective care.
Types of Educational Content Video
Educational videos come in different forms, each serving a unique learning objective and helping learners reach better learning outcomes. Here are four common types:
- Explainer Video: Designed to explain concepts or theories through visuals and story, making lessons easier to understand.
- Whiteboard Animation: Great for simplifying complex processes, letting teachers demonstrate practices clearly and effectively.
- Case Study Video: Provides real examples that connect theory with practice, showing how outcomes apply in real situations.
- Microlearning Video: Short clips of 1–3 minutes, perfect for online courses, TikTok, Reels, or LMS platforms, ideal for quick lessons that improve retention.
Optimizing Distribution and Accessibility
Producing videos is just the first step. To reach millions of learners and ensure effectiveness, distribution and accessibility matter. Consider these strategies:
- Multi-channel sharing: Post on websites, apps, or channels like YouTube, TikTok, and LinkedIn to maximize reach.
- Subtitles: Add captions so content is accessible to all, from kids to adult learners in online courses.
- Thumbnails: Use clear, eye-catching thumbnails to convey the video’s objective and increase clicks.
These practices help institutions and brands develop credibility, keep audiences engaged, and move their business forward by producing measurable outcomes.
Start creating your own educational videos
Hopefully, you’ve come up with lots of new ideas and insights for your upcoming videos!
You have the talent, inspiration, and resources to make an educational video.
To make interesting video content for your educational purposes, you can always count on Superpixel to make it great. Feel free to contact us for our services.
