As video is slowly becoming indispensable part of our e-learning courses there are more chances to overdo the things with video. There are some common myths related to usage of video in e-learning which we'll try to look at today.
Videos are expensive affair: Busted! Videos are no longer an expensive affair, simple camera and some basic video editing software with mac or windows is all it takes to make a simple hard-hitting video.
But Video will require great skills: Busted! We've been living with with videos for more than half a century almost now and the technology has so advanced that anyone can do it with proper learning. Learning and keeping an eye on the synch between audio and video to get desired effects is all it takes. These are learnable skills!
Macs are better than PC for video editing: Busted! Machine or operating system hardly matters you can make your video on your laptop using the operating system you have. No need to look around for anything else.
Flash/Quicktime is the best media streaming software: Busted! Flash is more universally available compared to Quicktime and is more wholistic for programming and interactivity. But then whichever codec you use is going to compress the video.
Frame rate, that's confusing: Not really! Well 24 frames per second (fps) works well with any sort of video we would like to put up. The films use this rate and its accpeted rate for films internationally without burdening the bandwidth much during streaming.
Finally, there will be more myths as we advance more with our videos and usage but as long as we do know the desired output no myth can stop us.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Thursday, June 03, 2010
Simple Graphic Tips
A well done course with all the proper assignments, perfect assessment, interesting content its a total failure without simple graphic spruce up to make it good enough for the user. Lets look at simple graphic tips to spruce up our online content.
Text:
Most simple fact that most of the content is written, use a simple to understand non-fancy font that is kept same throughout the course. I would personally recommend anything from sans serif family like Arial, Calibri, Tahoma etc.
Try not to use too small or too big font and don,t over do bolding, italics or underline. Avoid big titles, they kill the content. try to bring a normal font size title.
Color:
Use neutral colors for background and avoid dark, bright and loud colors in the background. Create a color scheme for you course and stick to it as you'll stick to the fonts.
Images/ Pictures:
Pictures can be elemental in conveying your content to the user but then it's elementary to use pictures that are non-distracting. Try to use pictures which speak of the subject they're used for. If we have to picture a surgical tool try to picture it in a box or its compartment unless its animated. This will take user attention on the tool rather than its background or the person holding the tool in the image.
And finally image size should be such that it is balanced with the content, try and give half the screen to image and rest half to the text to keep the balance.
Graphs/ Diagrams:
Graphs and diagrams help to take across a point or statistic/ data to the user in a visually attractive way. Use relevant graphs and diagrams wherever possible but neither try to cram up lot of information in a small graph nor too little information in bloated graph. Try to achieve a balance in you representation. If needed merge or divide the graph and information for simplicity of understanding.
Take away:
Finally, great content presented with consistent colors, font and related graphs and images in right context will not only make course easy to understand but increase its appeal to the user.
Text:
Most simple fact that most of the content is written, use a simple to understand non-fancy font that is kept same throughout the course. I would personally recommend anything from sans serif family like Arial, Calibri, Tahoma etc.
Try not to use too small or too big font and don,t over do bolding, italics or underline. Avoid big titles, they kill the content. try to bring a normal font size title.
Color:
Use neutral colors for background and avoid dark, bright and loud colors in the background. Create a color scheme for you course and stick to it as you'll stick to the fonts.
Images/ Pictures:
Pictures can be elemental in conveying your content to the user but then it's elementary to use pictures that are non-distracting. Try to use pictures which speak of the subject they're used for. If we have to picture a surgical tool try to picture it in a box or its compartment unless its animated. This will take user attention on the tool rather than its background or the person holding the tool in the image.
And finally image size should be such that it is balanced with the content, try and give half the screen to image and rest half to the text to keep the balance.
Graphs/ Diagrams:
Graphs and diagrams help to take across a point or statistic/ data to the user in a visually attractive way. Use relevant graphs and diagrams wherever possible but neither try to cram up lot of information in a small graph nor too little information in bloated graph. Try to achieve a balance in you representation. If needed merge or divide the graph and information for simplicity of understanding.
Take away:
Finally, great content presented with consistent colors, font and related graphs and images in right context will not only make course easy to understand but increase its appeal to the user.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Getting E-Learning Right
When a course gaps the bridge between learner and educator with right content the results are clearly seen with high test scores, retention and performance. Such courses remain engrained with learners and educators for some time.
The way a state of art course with all the frills of social media, web 2.0 used to optimum with poor content is a failure so is the course with best content with no frills of these technology. To get your e-learning right you must be able to get a balance - balance of content and technology!
But then to get this balance we must be able to grab attention of user. A bright flashing light by the driveway is good enough to grab your attention to a strawberry vendor but then the broken van, shabby seller and rotting strawberry won't get you engaged enough to stop by and buy. So the core mantra to get your e-learning right is a right balance between attention and engagement :)
Now imagine the same flashing bulb on the drive and a perfect strawberry truck with great strawberries and great seller by another end, it does no good either as before the driver notices the truck he will be either distracted or bored or probably both.
Grab attention of your users with right technology and content titles and then engage them with ease of your easy to understand content presented with a choice of right options with e-learning. But the key here is to be sure that don't get them distracted or bored with superfluous graphics and videos. Perfect balance will help us get e-learning right!
The way a state of art course with all the frills of social media, web 2.0 used to optimum with poor content is a failure so is the course with best content with no frills of these technology. To get your e-learning right you must be able to get a balance - balance of content and technology!
But then to get this balance we must be able to grab attention of user. A bright flashing light by the driveway is good enough to grab your attention to a strawberry vendor but then the broken van, shabby seller and rotting strawberry won't get you engaged enough to stop by and buy. So the core mantra to get your e-learning right is a right balance between attention and engagement :)
Now imagine the same flashing bulb on the drive and a perfect strawberry truck with great strawberries and great seller by another end, it does no good either as before the driver notices the truck he will be either distracted or bored or probably both.
Grab attention of your users with right technology and content titles and then engage them with ease of your easy to understand content presented with a choice of right options with e-learning. But the key here is to be sure that don't get them distracted or bored with superfluous graphics and videos. Perfect balance will help us get e-learning right!
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