--- title: "Planning my API doc course" date: 2015-11-29 description: "Finalized content Story arc Video recording How to read into a teleprompter Larger strategies for my blog ..." canonical_url: https://idratherbewriting.com/2015/11/29/thoughts-on-recording-api-doc-course/index.html --- > For AI agents: a documentation index is available at https://idratherbewriting.com/llms.txt. Markdown versions of all pages are available by appending .md to any page URL. # Planning my API doc course > As I prepare to record my API doc course, I'm finalizing a few thoughts about the content, setup, and other details. I’ve been planning to convert my [API documentation course content](https://idratherbewriting.com/learnapidoc/) into an online course for a while. I mostly have everything in place now; it’s just a matter of doing it. These past few weeks I’ve been trying to clean up a few things with my blog, and the holidays seem to bring their own slow-down, with parties to attend, get-togethers, family activities, and so on. In short, I’ve been procrastinating. I want to outline a few thoughts and plans I have for recording the videos. ## Finalized content First, I need to make sure the content is more or less locked down before I start recording anything. It would be a waste to record a video, post-process it, and later decide that the content itself needs a lot of revision. I’ve been fine-tuning the [API documentation course content](https://idratherbewriting.com/learnapidoc/) as I was teaching some API doc workshops recently. I think it’s mostly there; it just needs to be more conversational and script friendly. However, I won’t really know what works and what doesn’t until I start recording it. ## Story arc In my API doc course, I decided to contextualize a lot of concepts around a simple weather API on Mashape. Recently the API had a few changes (suddenly requiring credit card to sign up for the free plan), but the developer reverted to the earlier model he had, so I think it’s fairly stable. Still, it’s a risk to use a specific context of an API for a course. The API could change or be discontinued, and then I’d have to alter my course. On the other hand, not having a specific context makes the learning experience more challenging. ## Video recording I have a technical setup that should be interesting. I purchased a few studio items: - Green screen + lighting kit - Canon Vixia video camera - Teleprompter adapter for iPad - Teleprompter remote control I’ve spent about $600 on this equipment. The green screen will allow me to superimpose myself in front of a slide presentation. After watching some how-to videos on Udemy, I’ve decided this is the way to go. I currently have this set up in my garage, and I’ve recorded a couple of test videos. I was deliberating about whether to just use my iphone instead of buying a video camera, but in the end decided the video camera was worth it so that I could also better record STC SV and WTD meetings. ## How to read into a teleprompter Although a lot of my course involves hands-on activities, there are some conceptual parts. It seems like a lot of courses these days have talking heads, so this is something I’ve wanted to try. I plan to back up a bit to occupy a small third of the screen so that my eyes don’t look like they’re reading from a teleprompter. As for the teleprompter, you can set your iPad on a contraption on a tripod and get the same benefits as a normal teleprompter. Since I already have an iPad, this seemed like the thing to try. For the hands-on activities, I won’t use the teleprompter or talking head but rather just record video tutorials the same way I’ve always done them. ## Larger strategies for my blog In thinking about my larger strategies for this blog, I want to work on projects similar to this REST API course. Standalone blog articles (like this one) are fine, but I get more satisfaction in working on something larger. Blog article have such short lives. They get shorter and shorter as we’re inundated with new information all the time. I want to write lengthier content — the kind that can be converted into books or courses (or both). The blog posts I write will more likely be short updates about the progress of the projects I’m working on.