Sunday, May 04, 2008

V-learning - just do it!

Record and distribute
Yet another internet phenomenon has show us the way forward in learning. Mr Kedersha has made over $100,00 this year from his instructional videos on Metacafe, which pays him on hits. YouTube has led the charge but other sites, some of which pay contributors, such as ExpertVillage, VideoJug, Wonerhowto, howcast and Graspr offer similar content.

There's a lesson here for every school, college, university and organisation. Record and distribute video clips. In all of these organisations there are literally thousands of tasks to be learnt. Take some of your budget, buy a camera, train someone on how to prepare, structure, shoot and edit video - and learn a lesson from this phenomenoa - just do it! Media sharing should be the next big thing in learning.

Moral outrage
It's a moral outrage that teachers, lecturers, instructors and trainers don't record their stuff. It's largely embarrassment, because most of it is so dull, but surely we in the learning profession can LEARN from those in every other medium; that the good stuff should be caputured, distributed and used. And don't believe all taht baloey about IP and copyright - let's face it, if most of ite were tested by the market, it would be worth zilch. Get the market to decide who should be rewarded.

Schools would benefit greatly from a bank of brilliant downloadable video clips. This would be a resource well worth creating in each major subject - especially umeracy and literacy. And is there anything worse than the university lecture - surely they should be doing their students a favour by allowing them to view lectures more than once? Similarly in training. Got a procedure, concept, product, value? Shoot it and distribute.

Try it
Fish around on these sites and look at the top videos. Want to save yourself some money, learn how to cut hair. Do quick mental arithmetic? Save energy? Improve your memory? It's all there.

Make it snappy
Of course, the trick is keep it short, simple and snappy. Get your expert, brief them to do 10-20 slots, quickly, o excess fat, rehearse it once, prtending to shoot, give feedback and do it again.

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