One of my students this past year had a medical condition that required him to be out of school for an extended time. I decided to make quick little videos for him, somehow. I had already been demonstrating the devices for my students, so the devices were out and ready, and I had my explanations practiced and warmed-up. I decided to use a simple Logitech USB webcam that normally attaches to my monitor. I experimented with rigging it up in various ways and hit upon having it point straight down at a black lab tabletop. That way just my hands and the devices would be visible while my voice narrated. The webcam software kept trying to adjust for the black tabletop, over-exposing anything not black. I finally decided to leave something bright in the frame which I knew I could crop out later. This turned out to be a pretty easy way to control the exposure.
After a couple of takes, I opened the video files in my editor of choice, Filmora (worth the expense, but there's also a free option), and edited the video. I created a fade from black at the beginning and a fade to black at the end. I separated the audio track, and faded the audio as well. I went through the audio to get rid of unnecessary um's and ah's and other sounds. Sometimes I inserted a bit of video or audio from another take. It was pretty quick work. I exported the videos as MP4 files and uploaded them to YouTube. The videos are below.
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