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The main thing to remember about training is that you can't absorb
everything at once. No matter how well designed, folks will always forget
some critical details that they'll need later. Which points out the main
weakness of video, it's much harder to review when you're trying to refresh
your memory than written documentation. I can either re-watch an entire
training video to find out where that setting is that I vaguely remember,
or I can search the documentation for the word "setting" or "flag" and find
it much, much faster.
Providing a transcript of the video could help with that. But I'd also
vote for a mix of video and some form of written documentation. I like to
take notes on things like lecture slides and student handbooks, that I can
then refer to weeks after the training, when I'm actually trying to DO the
things I was trained to do.
On Thu, Mar 17, 2016 at 11:11 AM, Chris Morton <salt -dot- morton -at- gmail -dot- com>
wrote:
> When I *really* wanted to learn Pagemaker or AutoCAD, I used multiple
> sources, including video.
>
> It's a fact (*Jack, boomalacka, boomalacka*) that humans react to differing
> learning modalities (auditory, kinesthetic, visual, et al.). I'm primarily
> visual, which is why sitting in a college lecture hall with 200 others
> didn't work for me, nor did having WWJ's chief engineer attempt to explain
> the technical aspects of electricity, amplification and radio without a
> single visual aid.
>
> So.... videos are great, but one needs well laid documentation, too. The
> Aldus PageMaker manuals still remain as the gold standard in my world. And
> the video I acquired was longer than your suggested timeframes, but was
> chunked out so a viewer could go to any segment at any time. The same holds
> true for AutoCAD and CorelDRAW! videos I've enjoyed learning from.
>
> Think about this: Does anyone you know memorize pages in a publication, or
> portions thereof? Many of us do, and such material gets imprinted to the
> extent that we can immediately pull it back up and recall some complex
> piece of information. How can anyone do that from video alone? Yes, there
> are those who memorize movie dialog and can reenact segments verbatim; I'm
> not one of them.
>
> BTW, to learn Framemaker, I bought the complementary Classroom In a Book,
> which consists of background info coupled with exercises (located on an
> accompanying optical disc). Auditory aside, think about how many modalties
> such a delivery vehicle offers. And yes, specific segments can be instantly
> referenced as many times as one wants. The series offers a great way to
> learn Adobe products, IMO.
>
>
>
> Chris Morton
>
>
>
> <
>http://t.sidekickopen04.com/e1t/c/5/f18dQhb0S7lC8dDMPbW2n0x6l2B9nMJN7t5XYgdnqQxW7fsH3H4XrddKW1pNgV-56dMhqf2Q-c6C02?t=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.linkedin.com%2Fpub%2Fchris-morton%2F2%2F166%2F6ba&si=6020636811198464&pi=59b16da3-3b07-49d7-fb9a-fba817819a7a
> >
>
>
> On Thu, Mar 17, 2016 at 10:52 AM, Stuckey, Ginger <X2BVSHEW -at- southernco -dot- com
> >
> wrote:
>
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I'm back with another question. My company is switching some engineering
> > software so they can get better metrics and make 3D and 2D models more
> > intelligent. It is a major philosophy shift. Key team members from each
> > engineering discipline are going through different types of training. Out
> > of that, we need to train the rest of the employees.
> >
> > The person who is supposed to oversee training thinks video only is the
> > way to go. You can find all kinds of documentation to support that but
> not
> > much specific to software training (so far).
> >
> > My position, as an experienced writer, is that you need a blended
> > approach. Video is fine but have some written documentation to go along
> > with it so that users have something to refer to later if they don't want
> > to find or watch a video. Documentation can be in any format so don't get
> > hung up on that. I also think videos should be no longer than 5 to 7
> > minutes not 15 or longer. Users also need someone available to ask
> > questions and that should be part of the mix.
> >
> > Based on your experience in the real world, what works for software
> > training.
> >
> > Ginger Stuckey
> > Technical Publications - Design
> >
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