Here are three examples. After
viewing the video, students will
be able to cook a nutritious vegan
meal in one pot while backpack-
ing. Or, students will be able to
replace the spark plugs on a 4-cyl-
inder car engine. Or, students will
be able to create a sharable form
using Google Docs.
Some video instruction might
have just one learning objective,
others could have several. Some-
times learning objectives are really
specific, others are more general.
Therefore, it just depends on the
topic and length of the video. Ev-
erything in the video should build
the learner’s skills toward accom-
plishing the learning objective.
WHO’S THE TARGET
AUDIENCE?
In any form of communication, it
is critical to consider the character-
istics of the audience — referred
to as demographics. These charac-
teristics might include age, gender
identity, ethnicity, educational
level, political affiliation, and many
more. These are the same audience
attributes advertisers use to guide
them when making choices about
where to place ads.
I bet you use different words
when talking to your grandmother
as opposed to your same-age BFF.
Similarly, you need to know the
specifics of the learners you expect
to complete the instruction. For
example, you want to make sure the
words, music, hosts and announcers
are appropriate for the audience.
For instance, say you are going
to teach teenagers how to properly
Scripting an educational video: What’s the objective?
set up a skateboard. It would probably be better to
choose current popular music, as opposed to 1970s
classic rock. Or what if the goal is to instruct young
mothers how to install a child seat in a car? It would
probably be best to use a host with demographics
similar to the intended audience.SCRIPTING BASICS
After determining the learning objectives, and char-
acteristics of the intended audience, it’s now time to
write the script. A two-column script is a common
format used for instructional video.
This script divides the visual and audio aspects of the
production into left and right columns. Horizontal lines
— typically produced by a word processing table — sepa-
rate the shots, or scenes, of the production. Synchronize
the content of the columns so the dialogue in the right
column matches the shots described in the left.
In the left-hand video column, describe in words
what the scene looks like visually. Specify things like
“a wide shot of a classroom” or “a closeup of a teacher
at a whiteboard.” This is also the place to describe
titles or other text that appears onscreen and descrip-
tion of visual effects like “split screen,” “fade to black”
or “superimposition.”A mechanic’s tutorial video will have lots of b-roll showing how the parts
go together. Your video may look different depending on your learning
objective.EDUCATION