I get asked the question a lot of how Thinkific built our online video course platform. To provide a seamless video solution with a custom solution is not as simple as it may seem. At Thinkific, it has taken many iterations to get all the right pieces working. You need to encode the video to many different formats (mp4, webm etc.) and to support all browsers using HTML5, and then support a flash fallback for those that don’t support HTML5. In addition, you need to provide video sizes such as 720p and 360p in all these formats to ensure students are able to watch the video regardless of how fast their internet connection is. This is just a few of the many things you need to get right. For online video courses, you need to provide a seamless experience that can be viewed ideally with no stuttering. The last thing you want is someone watching your course videos and getting frustrated because the technology is getting in the way of their learning. There are 5 main components you need to consider to build a complete solution: Video Player (this is extremely important and has a big impact on quality of delivery & experience). Options include Sublime Video, MediaElementJS, VideoJS & JW Player (has been unreliable and support isn’t great in my experience). These are just a few. Encoding. You will need to encode videos to multiple formats and sizes. Zencoder or AWS Elastic Transcoder are both good from my experience. Storage. AWS S3 is definitely one of the cheapest and most reliable options.  Hard to beat this. Delivery. This can be done by S3 but a CDN is ideal to improve downloading & buffering speeds. AWS Cloudfront is sufficient for most scenarios but there are many others depending on budget and need. Uploading. Handling large video uploads can be challenging. At Thinkific.com we rolled our own and has taken a few attempts to make this reliable and simple to use. Our recent bulk video uploader and course creator is just another iteration on this. If you’re just looking to just host videos, then Wistia or BrightCove are great solutions. If, instead, you’re looking for a complete course hosting solution then Thinkific.com would be what I’d use! - Matt @ Thinkific The post How to build an online video course platform appeared first on Thinkific.

Challenging times for modern L&D professionals At Logicearth, we recognise that today it is not easy to be a L&D professional. The technology choices alone that are available to support the modern learner, not to mention the on-going narrative of doing more with less, can often leave the L&D professional caught in the eye of the storm; sometimes damned if you do and dammed if you don’t. And we know from research that confidence in how to do the right thing is a challenging issue for L&D professionals. In the CIPD Annual L&D Survey report, 2015: In this blog, we offer some refection on how workplace learning has evolved and how the L&D professional might capitalise better on the opportunities now open to them. (You can see a summary of our 5 tips here: 5 ways to supercharge L&D) So where has learning evolved from? Think about how you learn today, versus ten years ago. What are the key differences? For me, there are two; immediacy and collaboration. Ten years ago, I did most of my learning from a recognised expert, the sage on the stage. I did most of my real learning on my own - after attending courses or reading a book. I had very few people to talk to about what I learned. It took me a long time to learn things, to become expert myself. That made me want to horde my knowledge as it was so hard-earned. Knowledge is power was definitely of that era. Fast forward 10 years and content is freely available. Many people share their knowledge and learning freely in the sharing economy. We’ve gone from the sage on the stage to the guide on the side. Coaching and mentoring are now key workplace skills along with the ideas of self-service and on-demand learning. Such is the pace of business, I can’t afford, most of the time, to wait until something is formally scheduled for me to learn. Learning in the classroom insn’t dead though - it just needs to be supported by other flexible options. That means L&D needs to respond differently to my needs; else I may end up doing what many modern learners are doing - bypassing L&D and organising their own learning. So, let’s look at 5 ways that you could supercharge your L&D provision to bridge these gaps; question, focus, set goals, be agile and get support. Question: common challenges that your organisation needs to address What do you need to change, fix or improve in your organisation? I like the KISS acronym; what do you need to Keep, Improve, Start or Stop? Is it helping staff to use a new tool or product, is it to prevent recurring errors or could you do staff induction much better? Spend time with your key heads of department. Talk about their challenges and above all, ask lots of questions. Focus: identify the specific type of learning need If we consider the 5 moments of learning need, we start to get a better handle on how more sophisticated learning needs can be. Start by asking your staff three key questions: What do you need to learn? What will it make you better at? How will we know you are better? Spend time researching the 5 moments of learning need and think about how it might apply to your staff. You can read more about it in one of our blogs here, or in this Learning Solutions magazine article here. There are many types of learning need - so let’s look at another; behaviour change. Behaviour change is often the holy grail of training and learning. How do we encourage and support employees to act in the best way to support the business? Behaviour change is a science and there are tried and tested techniques to support this in the workplace. It isn’t a quick fix though, so often, on-going re-inforcement and practice is needed. To change behaviour you need three things in place: Call to action - help people see that the behaviour is needed now Ability - people must have the knowledge and capability to perform the behaviour Motivation - there must be little barriers to performing the behaviour and some intrinsic rewards, if possible Logicearth learning services has designed many eLearning programmes that support clients in facilitating behaviour change in their organisations. It is one of our key strengths and as such we have developed a series of instructional design techniques specifically aimed at behaviour change. This example guides the learner through a reflection on energy habits, helping them to think about making changes. These include: Inspirational explainer videos, targeting emotional impact and consequences of either completing or not completing the behaviour Discovery learning pathways using personas, which encourage learners to pull their own learning in a way that helps them to explore potential barriers to change Scenarios that allow the learner to try the behaviour on for size in a safe environment, complete with actions and consequences - both good and not so good Success stories that role model the impact of appropriate behaviour change Set goals: measure the business impact There is a saying - you can’t manage what you don’t measure. How do you know what success looks like for you when you support a new learning initiative in your organisation? You can include both qualitative and qualitative measures. Ask staff frequently to demonstrated how they have improved - and encourage them to share their insights with others. For many years, we in the L&D professional have be characterised by our ‘smile sheets’ - we asked people if they enjoyed training courses by focusing on the lunches we provided or the comfort of the training facilities. I know, I did it too! We need to go beyond that now. We need to look at measures that have an impact on the business bottom line. For example, how can we use learning to: Reduce customer complaints Reduce operator errors Increase sales performance Increase market share Working on these kind of metrics requires alignment with business need - and a deserved seat at the senior management table for L&D. So what could you do? Next time you are talking to the head of sales, ask him or her what is biggest barrier to improving sales? This doesn’t have to be a 50-page time and motion study - pick a metric, try it out, see what results you get and improve the next time. Be agile: prototype, test, measure and re-test There is another saying - think big, start small, scale fast. I’d like that to be new mantra of the modern L&D professional. Marketers are great at this - they start a campaign as a small prototype and test the parameters, then they adjust and make it better next time around. Marketers are always learning, always growing. Some L&D teams create a focus group to test new ideas on just showing rough prototypes rather than a polished solution. Is this something you could do in your organisation? Get support: build your own personal learning network (PLN) To keep up with the pace of change, it is important that you have good support. Many L&D people now find themselves in much reduced teams  -often running a L&D department with just one other colleage but still having to service the learning needs of the whole company. In previus era’s many of us could travel to networking events or conferences to keep up, but with less money around now, that is not always possible. So what can you do? Social media provides a wealth of opportunity to connect to L&D professionals. Two tools in particular have many L&D professionals who frequently share and help each other out; Twitter and LinkedIn.  If the thought of these tools makes you bristle with the potential thought of encountering a bunch of narcissists, I can reassure that won’t be the case. You can find your own corner in these networks, look for like-minded people - just as you would in the non-virtual world. If you want to learn more about Twitter for example, you can check out our recorded Webinar here, and more Twitter advice here. In LinkedIn, why not get yourself registered if you aren’t already and do a search for training or learning and development groups. Are you up for the challenge? Logicearth Learning Services specialise in designing, delivering and supporting modern workplace learning solutions, which brings results for individuals and organisations. We are learning technology experts and along with specialist interactive multi-device content development skills, we can provide a complete service for all your organisation’s modern learning needs. Logicearth has offices in Belfast and Dublin but deliver services worldwide, including Ireland, UK, USA and throughout Europe. The post From threat to opportunity: 5 ways to supercharge L&D professionals appeared first on Logicearth.

http://minkhollow.ca/beckerblog/2012/12/01/dont-beleive-everything-you-read-really-stop-it/ Don’t Beleive Everything You Read. REALLY. Stop It. | The Becker Blog This was posted on Google+…

When I created my first online course I spent months researching and testing dozens of tools and methods for content creation. I tried various PowerPoint plugins and course authoring tools. In the end, I settled on something I wasn’t all that happy with but it was enough for the time. That was 10 years ago, and today there are so many more options. Since then I’ve re-produced my course a few times, built a full production studio, and helped hundreds of experts produce and launch their own courses. Recently I’ve really honed my workflow and come to rely on a few key tools. I want to talk about one of those today. My favourite easy-yet-powerful way to create courses is with a screen recording tool. This lets you record what’s happening on your screen (for example: a walkthrough of an application, a PowerPoint, or a Keynote presentation) while also recording audio. For the Mac users out there, my go-to software choice is ScreenFlow. ScreenFlow allows you to quickly record your screen as well as video and audio. Once you’ve got a recording, ScreenFlow includes everything you need to edit and publish your content. You definitely do not need to have any video editing or technical skills to work this either. Full disclosure: I was given a free copy of the latest version, but the reality is I’ve been recommending this tool to our instructors for ages! The newest version has some great additions, like the ability to record directly from an iPhone or iPad, and adds new "Touch Callouts" that mimic finger gestures to help guide viewers. We’ve got a few clients working on mobile and tablet training courses where this will come in handy. I can create a complete video very quickly using this method. In addition to my recording, I often add a little video at the start or end to keep it personal and engaging and it’s ready to go! - Greg @ Thinkific The post Screen Recording to Create Video Lessons appeared first on Thinkific.

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