Benefits from interactive multimedia training and e-learning
If you are thinking of making the leap and commissioning your first multimedia programme, here are some thoughts that may persuade you.
1. Flexibility
: multimedia has the potential to be far more flexible than any
other medium. What that means is different routes through the material
("navigation") can be set out for different users. For
example,
a recent production of ours on mortgage interviewing skills used the same
material for five different applications - distance learning for junior
branch staff, pre-course work for senior branch staff about to attend an
interviewing skills course at head office, discussion triggers for use
during that course, training in interviewer assessment for supervisors and
managers, and product knowledge for staff in head office and support
departments.
So, when planning your project, think about all the different audiences you might be able to cater for. This will give you a lot of value from your investment.
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A small section from the folder of assets in a typical multimedia distributed on CD-ROM. On this particular disk there are over 200 separate items - sound, video, graphics, stills, control files, etc - any one of which can usually be quickly updated. On the other hand, this example also shows why it has been impractical until recently to distribute video over the intranet/internet. File number F60101 is a 20-second video clip in MPEG1 format; that's quite short, but it's still nearly 9MB, which would take a long time to download, even on broadband. Video streaming technology is getting round this problem, but there can still be difficulties - see "You and your IT dept". |
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2. Keeping it up to date : training videos usually have a shelf of five years or more, by which time they can be getting rather long in the tooth - logos and products will have changed, company structure and procedures may be different and so on. The great thing about multimedia is that it consists of a large number of individual files - video clips, audio files, graphics, etc. - any one of which can be deleted or replaced. Text is the quickest, easiest and cheapest to replace, followed by graphics and still photos; after that comes audio, which may mean bringing the narrator back to record some more voiceover (although existing audio can be edited quite simply); after that come video clips and animations.
By contrast, remaking a conventional linear video, even if you are able to re-use much of the material and even if it was originally put together in a non-linear edit suite and the original edit decision list is still intact, you will almost certainly have to rebuild the whole edit, which can be expensive.
The internet/intranet is also a good way of keeping your production up to the minute. The mortgage interview multimedia described above carries links to an intranet page maintained by the training department, on which they post details of new products, new admin procedures and so on. Such links can be operated by the user or can trigger automatically when the user reaches a certain point in the course.
3. A fully
participative medium : this is stating the obvious, but
multimedia demands far more of the user. In fact the user doesn't
get anywhere unless they play the game. Having said that, we will
generally give the user control over the learning situation. If they
want to go back over something, they can do so. If they want to skip
something they already know, likewise. Most of the quizzes and
simulations we build into a multimedia are to keep people thinking,
to get them to explore different options and, to a certain extent,
for entertainment. Scoring such quizzes becomes a bit of a nonsense
if we already allow the user freedom to navigate - they can just
revisit the quiz until they get all the answers right!
If you are concerned to make sure that the user has learned all they need to, a more formal test can be provided at, say, the end of a module. Questions could be randomised to prevent collaboration between users at the same location, or even downloaded via the intranet and the results transmitted back to the training department.
Another check is to set up an automated Learning Management System, a database through which the user accesses the multimedia. This can record who has studied what, how long they spent on the course, how well they did and so on. This can become part of the user's training record, and may also have benefits if there is a statutory requirement to train for safety or regulatory reasons, for example.
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