TLDR: My notes on use Synthesia. May be helpful to fellow facilitators, trainers and workshop designers interested in how to use emergent and generative AI in their work.
What is Synthesia?
A tool for quickly creating videos. Choose an avatar and a voice, upload a pre-written script, and you can create a video that can be used for sales, as pre-workshop material, as a virtual business card, you-name-it. The paid versions allow you to have a custom avatar as well and I think your own voice.
How I’ve used it: I have used it for creating short how-to and instructional videos where too much emotion can be a problem (and when speed is an issue!) I also think that if the voice could be improved upon, this might be an interesting tool for recording learning material with slides as part of a blended learning course – i.e. for university summer schools that have gone online.
How other people are using this: the tool offers a variety of templates, like a sales call, a recommendation video, a training video and so on, which may inspire you to think of different ways to use it.
Pros: super-quick and cost-effective way to create video content. If anyone has ever had to spend a day editing a video, or re-recording a video to get it just right, then you may appreciate this.
Cons: the voice is a bit clunky and wooden, no real body language and so on. The internet is already inundated with lifeless videos and it would be a shame if this added more dull material. Realistically, if it takes off, it will get much better.
Try it out: you can create a free demo video here https://www.synthesia.io/free-ai-video-demo#LnD (takes about 1 minute).
Learn more: https://www.synthesia.io/
What I created with the tool: