There are a couple ways to capture a still image at a specific time in a video.

1. Take a screenshot of the video, using your computer's screenshotting tool
2. Use a special tool to capture a still from the video

The non-ideal way

The first way is to use your computer's inbuilt screenshot tool. Pause the video at the time you want to capture a still and take a screenshot. Easily done but there are problems with this approach:

1. Not easy to get a high resolution image. The image resolution is limited by the size of the video player application.
2. When you screenshot the video, you will also end up screenshotting unwanted visual elements on the video, such as the video player controls.
3. It's difficult to finely control the time at which to take the screenshot.

A better way to grab a still image from a video

To avoid the above problems, Klip has a tool right for the job. The tool is available at https://outklip.com/capturestill . The tool does a better job than a screenshot tool in the following ways:

1. Produces image resolution as good as the video
2. Captures a pure version of the video frame without unwanted visual elements
3. You can specify a millisecond accurate time in the video for the capture

With these features you can get a more accurate and higher quality still image of the video.

How to use the tool

Here's how the tool looks.

To use the tool, open https://outklip.com/capturestill in your browser.

Steps to capture a still:

1. Click button to choose a video file. You can select either an mp4, webm or ogg video file.
2. After the video loads in the video player, drag the cursor to the time in the video corresponding to the still image to capture.
3. Optionally, fine tune the time in the video, using the numerical time input
4. Click the Capture still button to save the image to your computer

In conclusion

To grab a still from a video people normally resort to screenshotting. But, screenshotting produces low quality results. For the optimal still image, use a tool specifically for capturing still images, like the Capture Still tool provided by Klip.

Email Sunil at sunil@outklip.com

To get good at anything, it helps to study the best. To get better at writing YouTube video titles, I found it useful to study the work of MrBeast, who just crossed 100 million subscribers.

I analyzed the titles of over 50 videos made by MrBeast over the past 3 years and found common patterns. A NewTuber can use these patterns to immediately improve their titles. Using these patterns in your title won’t make you an overnight sensation, but they will give your video a boost.

The big takeaway is that MrBeast’s video titles are written so even a person without a school education can understand them. This is one of the reasons his videos consistently pull in over 50 million views.

You could argue the concept and execution of each video is the reason for pulling in viewers. But it’s the title that communicates the concept to prospective viewers. Without titles like these, MrBeast wouldn’t be pulling in viewership at the scale he does.

Titles of the top 5 most viewed videos

1. $456,000 Squid Game In Real Life!
2. I Spent 50 Hours In Solitary Confinement
3. I Spent 50 Hours Buried Alive
4. Press This Button To Win $100,000!
5. Last To Leave Circle Wins $500,000

Tips for writing a title

After analyzing his video titles, I've come across patterns that are useful to create our own video titles.

1. Only grade level 0 comprehension needed

People without a school education can understand his titles. Use the simplest words possible.

2. Most titles have 8 words or less

3. Most words in a title are monosyllabic

For e.g. Food, Cleaned, Spent, etc. When we read a word, we make its sound in our head. Monosyllables mean less reading effort.

4. All titles are complete sentences in active voice

For e.g. "I spent 50 hours". Active voice is easier to understand.

5. All use title case capitalization

For e.g. "I Spent 50 Hours Buried Alive"

6. The most common starting phrase is “Would you”

A sentence starting with 'would you' kindles a viewer's imagination.

7. Money and time are featured in many titles

26 titles refer to money ($) and 12 refer to time (“hours”, “day”, etc.). Money and time are universal concepts that attract a viewer's interest.

Analysis

I looked at over 50 titles and analyzed each in a readability analyzer. I also counted the words and syllables.

We can see in the table that most titles have a grade level of 0. This means they are very easy to understand, even to someone without a school education.

We also see that the most common word length is 8 or less.  Also the number of syllables in a title is almost equal to the number of words, which means he mostly uses monosyllabic words. With fewer words and syllables, the title is much easier to understand.

The first two words of a title are very important for grabbing a users attention, when users are quickly scrolling down a list. Here are the most common starting two words in his titles.

1. "Would you..." - 5 times
2. "Last to..." - 3 times
3. "I spent..." - 3 times
4. "I got..." - 3 times
5. "I ate..." - 3 times
6. "Extreme $100,000" - 3 times

In conclusion

The takeaway from MrBeast’s video titles is to write complete sentences using a basic vocabulary, active voice, monosyllabic words and have an interesting hook.

Email Sunil at sunil@outklip.com

I got a comment on one of my videos -- 'fake accent tho'. I wasn't offended thanks to conditioning by family members, who sometimes call out my faux American accent.

In my defense, living in the US for a while has bestowed me with a partial accent. The comment did prick though. I could've ignored or removed it, but I chose to reply. I replied politely with an explanation for my mixed accent. The commenter did not reply back.

Comments are a mixed bag

When someone interacts positively with the video creator, it's a healthy sign. Good videos invite comments. They can serve as encouragement to keep making videos. They can make you think and get ideas for future videos.

They can also hurt. We don't get to choose the kind of comments we get. It's the cost of putting ourselves out in front of the world. Is it then worth responding to hate comments? Yes, but more on that later.

YouTubers get anxious about comments

Some YouTubers don't reply to comments. They don't even look at the comments until days have passed after posting the video. They believe commenters don't expect a reply. Or they are afraid of negative comments that cause anxiety and discourage them from making more videos.

But, there are situations where you must do something about comments on your video. Think of your video as your living room and your viewers as guests. Some guests want to engage in conversation. Few guests are troublemakers and make a mess in the living room. You must clean up the mess, so it doesn't spoil the experience for other guests.

How to handle negative comments

1. Spam

When you see gibberish or nonsense words in your video comments, it's either a bot or someone playing mischief. Just remove the comment. You can remove it through YouTube Studio.

2. Negative feedback

Someone who's watched your video and points out a problem with your video deserves a response. For example, someone comments that you're speaking too fast. If the comment is indeed something you can act upon, thank the commenter and say you'll do better next time.

If the commenter says your voice is terrible, there's nothing you can do to change it. Here, you can be polite and say you have a natural limitation. If you reply to negative feedback with grace, you will win over others, some of whom might jump to your defense.

3. Hate

Some comments are plain nasty. There's no feedback. They're "I don't like you or your video" type comments. These don't need a response. If you can reply with something witty that's great. But, always be polite. Maybe the commenter has a problem or is venting after a rough day. Give them the benefit of doubt.

If the comment is really problematic, just remove it. Your self esteem is most important. Having to face the same hate comment each time you visit your video is not worth it.

How to handle positive comments

1. Low effort praise

Some commenters leave a one word response to compliment your video. They say things like 'cool', 'nice', 'good video', etc. These commenters don't exactly expect a response, but you can acknowledge them by hearting their comment.

2. Compliments

If someone makes an effort to write a thoughtful positive comment, reply with a "thank you". But only reply to one or two such comments per video. Reply to any more and it will be an eyesore.

3. Questions

Question comments are why we make videos. It is highly rewarding when a viewer watches your video and wants to learn more. When someone asks a question related to your video, it's good form to reply. These people took time out of their day to watch your video and write a thoughtful comment, so they deserve a response.

4. Constructive feedback

Some comments are critical about your video but they're trying to help you become better. Acknowledge the comment by hearting it, or reply with a thanks at least. Such comments help you grow as a video creator.

In closing

Video creators are focused on making good quality videos and often neglect comments. Negative comments drain our energy and sap our confidence. But, we also end up neglecting positive comments in the process. Positive comments can make you feel good, give you new ideas and help you understand your audience.

It's worth looking at comments once in a while and responding based on their type. Hate comments need to be handled, but be polite if you do reply. Our mental health is the thing we must protect, to keep doing what brought us to YouTube in the first place – to make videos.

Email Sunil at sunil@outklip.com

My friend said my video’s intro was a minute too long. I had shared with her a 6 minute video that I was going to post to my YouTube channel. She felt viewers would close my video in the first minute if I didn’t shorten my intro. So, I removed the least important parts of my intro. To do that I used an online video cutter.

A video cutter, also called a video trimmer, is an editing tool to remove sections of a video. Trimming refers to removing sections from the head or tail of a video. Cutting refers to removing parts in the middle of a video. Since people use the two words interchangeably, to keep it simple, I use the cutting below.

Why cut your video?

There are three common situations when you need to cut your video.

1. Remove dead time at the beginning and end

There’s a few seconds of dead time between the start of recording and when we start speaking. There is also some dead time in the end, between when we stop talking and end recording. To improve the video, remove the dead time.

2. Delete mistakes

If you misspoke in the video or there was a mistake while recording, cut out those sections of the video.

3. Remove the boring parts

If something in the video takes up too much time and isn’t interesting, cut it out. An example of a boring part in a video: showing a progress bar or loading screen.

Now that we know the reasons to cut a video, what features do we look for in a video cutter?

Features to look for in a video cutter

1. Cut out parts at any time in the video

Most video trimmers cut just the ends of the video, but the good ones let you cut anywhere in between too.

2. Cut with frame-level precision

When cutting a video, you don’t want to cut out in the middle of a word or in the middle of an action. You want to cut cleanly in between words or actions. For that, you need a cutter that has frame-level precision.

3. Easy to adjust start and end times

A video cutter should provide both a slider mechanism to coarsely adjust the start and end time, and a numerical input for fine adjustment.

Klip is an online video cutter that has these three features.

Steps to cut a video

Here are the steps to use Klip to cut a video.

1. Open the cutting tool webpage

In your browser, open https://outklip.com/trim-video to open the video cutting tool.

2. Adjust video section

Adjust the slider handles below the video, to adjust the from and to times of the video section. You can also adjust the times through the numerical input boxes.  

3. Finish

After you're done adding all the sections you need, click Download. In a few moments, the finished video is saved to your computer.

Summary

The sculpture is already complete within the marble block, before I start my work. It is already there, I just have to chisel away the superfluous material. - Michelangelo

Like Michelangelo, who liberated sculptures from marble blocks, you too can liberate a good video from a raw recording, by cutting superfluous material.

With the Klip video cutter, you can do precision cuts and join them, to produce a shorter and better video.

There are many reasons to record a video of your Google Slides presentation. In this guide, I share my process for recording a screencast video of Google Slides.

Things to include in your video

Apart from recording the slides, what else do we need in the video? Let's go through a list of some important things to include in a video.

Audio Narration (voice over)

• Narrate while stepping through slides
• Pros: Makes slides easier to understand and video is more interesting to watch.
• Cons: If you speed up or slow down the video later through editing, the voice over won't sound good. If you are going to edit the video speed, it's better to record video only first and later add a voice-over track.  

Camera inset

• Turn your camera on, to be visible during the presentation
• Pros: Camera makes your video look friendly and lends it a unique personal touch. Your video gets better engagement.
• Cons: For the camera video to look good you need proper lighting, background, etc. If you don't have those, consider an alternative to camera: display your profile photo in a corner of the video. This way, even if the video is distributed by others, it has your stamp on it.

Video resolution

• For text to be legible, higher resolution is better. Lower resolution could result in pixelated video.
• Pros: 1080p is the optimal recording resolution. The video will look sharp and text on your slides will be legible.
• Cons: If you don't have 1080p, 720p works fine, but at this resolution, small text might not be legible. Avoid small fonts if recording with 720p.

Automatic closed captioning

• While you present, a live speech transcript appears on the video
• Pros:  Helps viewers watch the video in mute. Google Slides has in-built automatic closed captioning.
• Cons: The closed captioning accuracy is good but not perfect and might not be able to pick up accents.

Setup you'll needed

In the steps below we'll cover the following:

• record screencast of Google Slides
• with voice over, and
• camera or profile photo inset
• with automatic closed-captioning

Recording equipment

• Laptop or desktop computer
• Webcam (optional, for camera inset)
• Microphone (optional, for voice over / narration)

Software for recording

I'll be using Klip for recording. Klip has certain advantages:

• record nice-looking videos with screen, audio and camera
• easy user interface for daily use
• browser extension that works in Chrome, Edge and compatible browsers
• automatically uploads videos online, so no extra work needed to send people a video link
• in-built video editor
• To note: 720p resolution and 5-minute video recording are free. Upgrade to the Pro plan for 1080p resolution and longer than 5-minute recording.

Steps to record

1. Install the browser extension

You can install it for Chrome, Edge and compatible browsers.

2. Create account on Klip

Sign in is needed as the video is uploaded online. Signing in establishes your ownership of the video, so you can edit the video, delete it, share link, etc.

3. Open Google Slides

Go to slides.google.com and open the slide deck to record.

4. Open the recording dialog

Click the Klip extension icon to open the recording dialog.

5. (optional) Enable microphone for narration

Click to turn on mic for recording. If Chrome asks permission to record mic, click Allow.

6. (optional) Enable camera or profile photo

Click to turn on camera for recording. If Chrome asks permission to record camera, click Allow.

If you don't want camera, you could include a profile photo in the recording. Click Show more options on the recording dialog. On the options menu, enable the Profile photo setting. When camera is disabled, your profile photo will appear in the recording. You can customize the profile photo on your Klip account page.

7. Set video recording resolution

On the recording dialog, click Show more options. On the options menu, select the video resolution. Default is 720p. For 1080p, upgrade to Pro.

8. Click Record

Click the Record button on the recording dialog to begin recording.

9. Start recording

Select the entire screen for recording and click Share.

10. Start slideshow

After the countdown, the video is recording. Click Slideshow on your Google Slides presentation, to open it in fullscreen.

11. (optional) Enable automatic closed-captioning

On the slideshow, minimize the Klip control panel.

Move your mouse to the bottom left of the screen to activate the Google Slides menu. Click the three dots icon on the menu.

Click Captions preferences > Toggle captions to enable automatic closed captioning.

12. Start presenting

Start your presentation and go through your slides.

13. Stop recording

To stop recording, click the stop icon on the Klip control panel.

14. View recording

The video is automatically uploaded to outklip.com, where you can view it.

15. (optional) Edit your video

To cut out parts of the recording like the beginning, end or middle, use the Trim editing tool. To perform other kinds of video edits, Klip has several editing tools.

16. Share the video

After you’re happy with the recording, you can share the outklip.com link or download the video.

Bonus: Record Google Slides with auto-play

The steps described above require manually stepping through slides. If you’re not so keen on that, you could set up Google Slides to auto-play slides and record it.

Here’s how to set up auto-play. The following can be done during #10 in the sequence listed above.

1. Open the Google Slides slide deck

2. Click Slideshow

3. Move your mouse to the bottom left of the screen to activate the menu. Click the three dots icon.

4. Select the auto-play option and choose the slide interval: 3 seconds, 5 seconds or longer.

5. Click Play to start automatic slideshow

Recommendations for recording Slides with auto-play

• Skip voice narration: with a slide transition every few seconds, it’s hard to get your narration to exactly sync with the transition. It could take many takes to get it right. It’ll be much easier to add a voice soundtrack after recording.
• Skip camera: camera will look awkward without a voice over

The take-away

The steps above might seem long. After you make your first recording, you won't have to repeat most steps for future videos and the process will become simple.

I recently cancelled a video call with an advisor due to a schedule conflict. I was going to present using Google Slides. I had important updates to share but our next meeting was at least a week out.

I still wanted to communicate my updates before our next meeting. I considered writing an email but dropped the idea for a couple reasons:

• explaining the finer points of my slides would've taken lot of time
• the advisor wouldn't have been thrilled to read a long email

Instead, I chose to record a 5-minute video of Google Slides while narrating the main points.  I shared the video with the advisor. Our meeting later that week went quickly as all we had to do was tie up the loose ends of our discussion.

The Google Slides video helped me carry on with my work without waiting until the meeting.

You too can unlock similar benefits by recording Google Slides, whether you work from home or office. Here are the top reasons to do so.

Reasons to record Google Slides as video

1. Have shorter meetings

Presenting at a meeting? Make a 5-minute video going over the main points in your slides. Send it to meeting attendees, to get them up to speed before the meeting.

The meeting will be move quickly as everyone is familiar with the main points.

2. People's calendars are booked

It’s hard to find a meeting time that works for all attendees. Share a presentation video and carry on with your work even when people are unavailable for a meeting.

3. Break the ice with new people

Presenting to someone you haven't met before? Send a video greeting with a brief summary of your presentation. This will break the ice and show meeting attendees what to expect from the meeting. Especially helpful when you're meeting customers.

4. Give updates without meeting

Have an upcoming work update meeting but there's no important news? Do everyone a favor and cancel the meeting. Send them a work update video instead.

5. Improve your presentation for an important meeting

Sometime ago, I presented at an important meeting, where I presented things that inadvertently upset a key person in the room. I could've avoided it by having a presentation run-through to get feedback.

I didn't have a run-through because I couldn't find a calendar slot that worked for everyone.

Here's what I learnt from that episode: before presenting at an important meeting, send a presentation video a few days ahead of time, to key people who can give pertinent feedback. Incorporate their feedback to improve my presentation and increase the chance that it's received well at the meeting.

Different kinds of Google Slides recordings

Depending on the situation, different kinds of Google Slides recordings come in handy. Here are some kinds I’ve come across:

• Lesson videos for online training: learners can watch these videos repeatedly till topics are clear.
• Step-by-step tutorials: helps learners pause and resume the video to keep pace with instructions.
• Project updates: get team on the same page about progress in a project without a meeting.
• Customer education: when a customer is too busy for a meeting, a video presentation with the relevant information is a good substitute.
• Preview of an upcoming presentation: record a preview of your presentation and send it to meeting attendees, to get early feedback. Incorporate feedback to improve the presentation for the meeting.

The downsides

When you choose to share a video recording with others, you get a lot of benefits but there are some downsides too.

• Loss of live interaction: if you’re the kind of presenter who takes questions during a presentation, you’ll miss that kind of interaction in a recorded presentation. To address the lack of interaction, elicit questions from viewers and make a separate Q&A video responding to their questions.
• Viewer might not listen to audio: when you share a recorded presentation, people can watch it from anywhere. They might try viewing the video in a noisy place. To get through to viewers no matter where they are, summarize the important points in text, at the end of the slide deck.
• Hard to read slides on a mobile phone:  you may have recorded the video presentation on a computer but there’s a good chance the video will be viewed on a cellphone. To aid viewing on a mobile phone, reduce the text and images per slide. Focus on only the important information and cut the rest.

How to record a screencast of Google Slides

I've written a guide showing how to capture a screen recording of Google Slides. It has the setup and steps you'll need to make your own recording.

The take-away

The video recording of Google Slides I shared with the advisor was a timesaver as it let the two of us get on the same page without a video call.

Try recording your Google Slides presentation, and unlock benefits for yourself and your audience alike.

A screencast is a versatile medium of communication. It is well suited for recording presentations, meetings, software demos, instructions, lessons and feedback. To record a screencast on a Mac you have two main options for a recording tool:

1. Use an app like Quicktime
2. Use a browser extension like OutKlip

In this article we cover option #2. A natural question that arises is why use a browser extension when you have an app like QuickTime.

Why use a browser extension instead of an app

A browser extension for screen recording has two main advantages over an app:

1. A common case for screen recording is to record a single browser tab. Browser extensions have a special recording mode that lets you record a single tab and tab audio.
2. A lot of our work is in the browser so it’s more efficient to launch and create a recording without leaving the browser. A browser extension lets you do that.

How to use a browser extension for screen recording on a Mac

1. Install the OutKlip browser extension. If you are using Chrome, Opera or Brave, install the extension from the Chrome web store. If you are using Microsoft Edge, install the add-on from the Edge add-ons store.

2. Once installed, sign up on outklip.com.

3. Click the OutKlip icon and select the Desktop recording mode to record the entire screen. Select Mic and Camera if you want to record voice and camera.

4. Click Record. A Choose what to share dialog will appear. Select Entire Screen and Share.

5. Now you’re recording your screen. After you’re done recording, click the OutKlip icon to stop recording.

6. A new tab opens with the screencast video you just recorded. Your screencast is ready! Click the play button to watch the video.

Demo video

By combining screen, camera and voice you can create compelling video content that viewers find interesting. By using the OutKlip browser extension, you can create attractive screencasts right in your browser.

A timer on Google Jamboard can be a handy tool for an online class. A timer can be used to show a countdown to students working on an interactive exercise. A timer can also be used to keep track during an online class. A basic timer is both a practical tool and can create a sense of excitement.

Google Jamboard does not have an inbuilt timer. But it’s quite easy to add one to a Jamboard if you know this trick.

How to insert a timer

Here’s the trick — you can insert a timer GIF into a Jamboard. While everyone knows that Jamboard supports images, it is not well known that Jamboard also supports GIFs. After all, GIFs are series of images played in sequence. Most web documents that allow images tend to support GIFs too.

Where to find a timer

To find a timer GIF, search on Google or Giphy. You can find a timer GIF for almost any duration. From what we’ve observed, Google search has a wider choice of timer duration. Download the timer GIF to your computer.

After you’ve downloaded a timer GIF you like, insert the GIF into a Jamboard by clicking Add image and Upload as shown in the demo below.

Demo

A timer in Jamboard is a great way to build excitement among viewers. You can use it to make online class more fun.

A Chrome extension screen recorder can record the video and audio of a webpage open in a browser tab. This is a unique advantage of browser extensions over non-extension screen recording tools.

To make a nice video of a webpage, you can record it in fullscreen. But there are a few tricks to record in fullscreen, which we cover in this article.

Use cases for browser tab recording

A few example use cases for recording a browser tab in fullscreen:

1. Record presentations with only the slides visible in the video
2. Record  software demos on a browser tab
3. Record online videos and webcasts
4. Record browser-based conference calls on Zoom, Jitsi, etc.

Requirements for fullscreen recording

To record a webpage in fullscreen, a screen recorder must meet two requirements:

1. Record a fullscreen webpage with webpage content and nothing more.
2. Launch the screen recorder without needing to exit fullscreen.

There are a couple problems in meeting the above requirements.

Problem

1. While recording, screen recorders display a control panel on the screen. A control panel has buttons to pause/resume, discard and stop recording. To make a clean recording of a webpage in fullscreen, the control panel should not appear in the recording.

1. To launch a Chrome extension you have to click its extension icon. To click the icon, a browser window must exit fullscreen. Altogether, we must carry out these steps (see video below):
2. exit fullscreen
3. launch the screen recorder extension and start recording
4. go back to fullscreen

The video recording will show step #3, which is undesirable. But, we can remove the part where it appears through video editing. While video editing is not hard to do, it requires effort.

Solution

The Outklip Chrome extension for screen recording solves these problems.

1. You can disable the control panel by changing screen recorder settings.
2. Use keyboard shortcuts to avoid exiting fullscreen to click the extension icon.

Details in the steps below.

1. Change Outklip Chrome extension settings

Click the Outklip Chrome extension icon to open the dialog shown below. Update the following settings.

1. Disable profile photo in place of camera — to prevent the avatar from appearing on the webpage.
2. Disable control panel — this will prevent the control panel from appearing on the webpage.
3. (Optional) Set countdown to 0 seconds — if you wish to avoid a countdown before recording.

2. Keyboard shortcuts

Outklip supports keyboard shortcuts. With shortcuts you can launch the Chrome extension, start and stop recording without exiting fullscreen.

To set up keyboard shortcuts for Outklip, open chrome://extensions/shortcuts in a browser tab. Set up shortcuts for the following operations (shown in the picture below).

1. Activate the Outklip Chrome extension
2. Start recording
3. Stop recording

If a shortcut conflicts with an existing Chrome shortcut, it will not work. So, test a shortcut to make sure it works. If it doesn’t work, try different shortcuts till you find one that works.

3. Create a recording

These are the steps to record a webpage in fullscreen.

1. Open the webpage in fullscreen.
2. Use the keyboard shortcut to activate the extension.
3. On the extension dialog, select Browser Tab.
4. Use the keyboard shortcut to start recording. This will start recording the webpage.
5. To stop recording, use the corresponding keyboard shortcut. The recorded video will be ready to preview on a new tab.

Video demo

With these simple steps you can make a pristine recording of a webpage in fullscreen, without needing further video editing.

The point of a video is to convey information in an interesting way.  If a video is not interesting, people won’t watch it. You can use a trick, if you will, to engage viewers better: change the speed of different parts of a video.

Why change video speed?

There might be a part of the video where you are doing something important but it only lasts for an instant. Viewers might not be able to grasp this part of the video. To emphasize this part, you can slow it down to 1/4x . Viewers will be able to better catch details.

There might be another part of the video where nothing much is going on. For example, you’re showing a progress bar in the video. You can speed up this part of the video to 10x. Viewers will appreciate the time saved in not staring at a progress bar.

By slowing down or speeding up a part of the video, you can either emphasize it or skim over.

Here’s an example. We’ve sped up the video below to 0.5x between 0:05 – 0:25s and 10x between 0:25 – 0:26s.

How to change video speed?

We’ll be using Outklip to change video speed. There are two ways to get a video into Outklip — 1. you can upload the video, or 2. You can create a video using the Outklip Chrome extension.

With the video in Outklip, you can use the Change Speed tool.

We’ve listed the detailed steps to change video speed here.

Video demo

Here’s a short tutorial on how to change video speed.

With this new ability, you can make videos more interesting by altering the speed of different parts.

When doing group exercises on Jamboard, there is a problem teachers often run into. Students, either by accident or on purpose, move objects on Jamboard. In some cases, a mischievous student erases another student’s work, resulting in tears.

You can move objects that you want to stay in place by clicking a Jamboard frame and moving the mouse. This happens because you cannot fix or “glue” objects on Jamboard. How can we solve this problem? We show two ways to fix objects on a Jamboard frame.

1. Set a custom image as background
2. Create a transparent box overlay for a Jamboard frame

Let’s look at them in detail.

1. Use a custom image as background

Jamboard lets you set a custom image as background. Click Set background > click Image and upload image to use as background, as shown below. The background remains fixed to the frame and you cannot move it.

Here are some ideas to create a background image for Jamboard:

1. From PDF:  take a partial screenshot of the PDF using a screenshotting tool on your computer. For a full screenshot, use a PDF to image converter like pdf2png.com or pdfcandy.com. More details in this article.
2. From Google Slides: compose the content in Slides and take a screenshot of the Slide.
3. From Jamboard: to save a Jamboard frame as an image, click the ‘three dots’ icon on the top right. Click Save frame as image, as shown below.

You can use the image you created as background for your Jamboard.

2. Create a transparent box overlay

There is another way to “fix” objects to a frame. Draw a transparent box to cover the whole Jamboard frame. The box will shield objects from accidental clicking and moving the mouse. These are the steps:

1. On Jamboard, click Shapes and select Square.

2. Click inside the frame to drop a square. Click Color on the top menu and select Transparent.

3. Move and stretch the square till it covers the full page.

4. Stretch the square till it is no longer visible on the page.

5. Now you can’t select or move objects beneath the transparent square.

This method is not foolproof like the background image method as you can move the transparent square by clicking on it. But, this method is quick and can prevent accidents that shift objects.

You can use one or both of these methods at a time to fix or “glue” objects to Jamboard.

With Jamboard, a teacher can write and show things on screen. Jamboard is also good for group exercises with students. Teachers often need to bring PDF study material into Google Jamboard.

There are two ways to import a PDF into Jamboard:

1. Convert PDF to an image and use the image as background for a Jamboard frame.
2. [For iPad, Android and Chrome OS Jamboard app only] Import PDF from Google Drive

Let's discuss these solutions in detail.

1. Convert PDF to image and use image as Jamboard background

Jamboard lets you set a custom background for a frame. Click Set background > click Image and upload image to use as background as shown below.

By converting a PDF to an image, we can use the image as background.

Pros: You cannot move around a Jamboard frame background with a mouse pointer. This is useful for group exercises, so students cannot change contents of a frame.

Cons: Requires effort to convert PDFs to images each time, to use on Jamboard.

To convert a PDF to an image, you have two options:

1. Screenshot the PDF using tools available on your computer. Screenshotting lets you get a partial screenshot of the PDF and the image is ready in an instant.

Here are the keyboard shortcuts to take a screenshot on different OSes:

Chromebook: Press Shift + Ctrl + Show all windows

Windows: Click the Start button. Type ‘snipping tool’ and select Snipping Tool from the list of results.

macOS: Press Shift + Command + 4

2. Convert a PDF to image using an online tool like https://pdf2png.com or https://pdfcandy.com/ . These online tools produce a .png image of every page of the PDF. A shortcoming of this approach is it takes a few minutes to convert a PDF to image.

2. [For iPad, Android and Chrome OS Jamboard app only] Import PDF from Google Drive

Follow these steps to import a PDF.

1. Upload the PDF to Google Docs.
2. Insert the Google Doc into your Jamboard.
3. Pull out specific pages and expand them in your Jamboard.

Pros: PDF to image conversion is not required.

Cons: The PDF must be on Google Drive. Also, because the PDF on Jamboard is not fixed, students can move it around during a group exercise.

The two strategies we described above let you incorporate PDFs into your Jamboard. Learn to use them both as they can come in handy in different situations.

How to record a video of Google Jamboard

To record a video of a Jamboard session, use the Klip app. It lets you record everything you do on the screen.  You can add voice narration and a camera thumbnail, so viewers can hear and see you in the video.

To make your point clear in an online document it is a good practice to include a video.

When people see text and video together, they are likely to absorb the information you want to convey. It also lowers the chance that people misinterpret the information.

The text plus video format is useful for several kinds of documents. You can use videos in lesson content to illustrate concepts. Videos in help manuals make steps easier to understand. A document with instructions to perform an action or show a phenomenon can gain from a video example.

But there’s a problem with inserting videos in documents. Most documents such as Google Docs or Wikis do not support video files. But most documents do support .gif. To insert a video in a document, you can convert the video to .gif format.

There’s yet another problem — .gifs take up a lot of space, sometimes 10x the size of a video. To reduce the size of a .gif, you can select a short snippet of the video and convert the snippet to .gif.

How to select a part of a video to convert to gif

GIFs do not have audio. Make sure the video doesn’t need audio to understand what’s going on. The visuals should be self-explanatory.

Keep a GIF to around 15 seconds or less. Since GIFs play in a loop, a user should be able to tell the beginning from the end.

Everything in a GIF should relate to one thing you want to convey. If you put too many actions and events into a GIF, viewers will have a hard time understanding what’s going on. Many small but focused GIFs will provide more clarity than one long GIF.

How it’s done

We’ll be using Outklip to convert a video to .gif. There are two ways to get a video into Outklip — 1. you can upload the video, or 2. You can create a video using the Outklip Chrome extension.

With the video in Outklip, you can use the Convert to GIF tool to convert a snippet of the video to GIF.

The detailed steps to create a GIF from a video are listed here.

After you create a GIF, you can download it and insert it into a document as shown below.

Video demo

Here’s a short tutorial on how to create a GIF from a video.

A simple GIF in your document can illustrate your point better than text or images. Put yourself in the shoes of a reader coming to your document. For any point that is hard to understand, try using a GIF.

“It’s pronounced JIF, not GIF”. These five words flashed on a screen when Steven Wilhite accepted the Webby award for lifetime achievement in 2013. He earned the distinction for inventing the GIF. Instead of giving an acceptance speech, Wilhite said it with a GIF.

People call the Webby the ‘Oscar of the internet’. The honor was well deserved as GIFs have long been an internet staple.

Today, people use GIFs in everyday conversation. They use them in chats, social media and even on professional websites, to bring levity to serious content.

Origin

In the 1980s, it was not easy to transfer images between computers. Each make of computer had its own special way of encoding and decoding image files. There was no industry standard to enable images created on one make of computer to render on a different make of computer. Also, images were huge, making it time consuming to move between computers.

To solve these problems, two things had to happen. One, a new protocol and data compression algorithm to represent images. Two, a format or protocol had to become an industry standard so an image would render on a computer of any make.

CompuServe, a software company, took on the challenge.

Wilhite, working for CompuServe, invented the Graphic Interchange Format (GIF) in 1987. He developed an image protocol using a compression algorithm. CompuServe released the protocol to the public domain.

CompuServe developed the GIF protocol for transferring and rendering a stream of online images in real time, such as live weather maps. But, the protocol was so good for storing image files that storage became its most popular use case.

CompuServe is handling the GIF protocol in a unique way. Most important: the protocol is public-domain. “And we want it to be an industry standard…The technology will be broadly available so as to promote the intention of its universal use.”, said Craig Knouf, Product Manager.

‘Computer users choose GIF’ from October 1987 issue of Online Today magazine

Here’s a timeline of major developments in the evolution of GIFs.

• 1987: the invention of GIF
• 1989: an enhancement to GIF, to enable animations
• 1995: the Netscape Navigator 2.0 browser adds support for playing GIFs in a loop. Other browsers later copy it.
• 1996: the dancing baby GIF goes viral

via GIPHY

The problems that spurred the invention of GIF are hardly an issue now. Image files are portable across computers. With cheap and abundant storage, images files are small in comparison. Yet, GIFs continue to thrive. A picture speaks a thousand words, a GIF says a lot more.

Not all GIFs are .gifs

Today, the word ‘GIF’ refers to a looping video or animation played in mute. The underlying file format may or may not be .gif. In many cases, the underlying file format is a .mp4 video. This is because a video file format takes up less space compared to .gif.

A file in .gif format is useful for webpages that do not support video. For instances, web documents like Google Docs allow image and GIF files but not video.

Another advantage of a .gif, is that is it treated like an image file. This means you can copy paste .gifs between documents, etc.

Many technologies have appeared and vanished in the 33 years that the GIF has been around. The GIF continues to be popular because it enriches the way people communicate.

One of the best ways for a teacher to conduct an online class is to record a lesson video and share the video with students. Ask the students to watch the video and after a time gap, conduct a live meeting to interact with students. This way of teaching enables the teacher to use the live meeting more productively, for interaction rather than one-way delivery of lesson content.

Jamboard provides a workspace on which you can pull together images, gifs, text, Google docs and hand writing to create lesson content. Jamboard is being used by teachers to show active problem solving. That is the biggest advantage of Jamboard over doing a slide presentation.

Say for example you want to show how to solve a math problem from a textbook. Copy paste an image of the problem onto Jamboard and use the workspace to work out the problem. Record your voice, camera and screen as you solve the problem. The camera helps make the video more lively and friendly.

After recording the video, send the video and the Jamboard link to students. This way students can see the step-by-step process of problem solving with voice narration as well as have a copy of the fully worked out problem.

Klip has a video recording mode that lets you record just a browser tab. The advantage of this mode for recording Jamboard is that only the tab content is recorded. You don’t have to close tabs or unclutter your desktop for recording.

Steps

Here’s a quick way to record a video of a Jamboard session.

1. Install the Klip Chrome extension and log into outklip.com.
2. Open a tab and open your Jamboard.
3. Click the Klip Chrome extension icon to open the Create a video dialog.
4. If you are recording for the first time, you will be asked to let Klip use your microphone and camera. Click Allow.
5. On the dialog, select Browser Tab and click RECORD. After a countdown, recording will begin.
6. Use Jamboard to teach the lesson you have prepared. Narrate as you work on Jamboard.
7. To stop recording, click the Klip Chrome extension icon on the top right.
8. A new browser tab will open to a webpage where you can view the video. Edit title and description with the lesson name and include the Jamboard link in the description.
9. Copy video link and send the link to students. You can also upload to YouTube or download the video.

Demo

By recording a video of Jamboard, you can create a video lesson that students can watch before the live class and rewatch multiple times to refresh concepts. A recorded video lesson will enable more time for productive discussion during live meetings.