How To Design A Successful Video-Based Learning Experience

How To Design A Successful Video-Based Learning Experience
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Summary: When to use video-based learning and how to choose the right strategy? Read on to find out.

Designing And Delivering Video-Based Learning For Success

Let’s begin by taking a look at the types of videos you can use for your video-based learning strategy:

Charting The Evolution, Success & Growing Popularity Of Video-based Learning
Read on this free eBook to understand the evolution and future of Video-based learning.

Contextual Videos

Video gives you the power to visually represent real world situations in which the concepts you are teaching come into play. This is incredibly useful in bringing abstract theories into focus as well as illustrate real events or activities.

When To Choose?

  • When the course content is theoretical.
  • When the course content is new or unfamiliar.
  • When learners are new to the medium of eLearning.

Analogy Videos

Analogies help learners to develop cognitive shortcuts to use as a reference when trying to problem solve in real life. Videos can create compelling visual analogies that are more likely to be remembered.

When To Choose?

  • When explaining new concepts or processes.
  • When explaining multiple concepts within a course.
  • When aiming to increase retention.

Illustrative Videos

Illustrative examples are a great way of concretely defining the topic at hand. Illustrations and graphics bring clarity and ensure that learners have a deep understanding of a particular concept.

When To Choose?

  • When videos have to be budget-friendly.
  • When limited internet bandwidth is available.
  • When creating a multi-device delivery.

Learner-Generated Videos

The internet can be utilized to facilitate knowledge sharing through learner generated videos. By encouraging learners to upload their own videos, it is an opportunity for them to share their knowledge.

When To Choose?

  • When learners crave social or peer learning.
  • When thought leadership has to be encouraged.
  • When content variety is required.

5 Things To Keep In Mind For Designing A Successful Video-Based Learning Experience

Creating video-based content for learning takes more than just sharing information in video format. Video-based content needs to be aligned with strengths as well as weaknesses of the medium.

1. Video Format

The first thing to decide upon is the format - animation, live action, or simply a walkthrough. Timelines of development and deployment will also have to be finalized as per budgets. The mode of production will also be taken into consideration so to ascertain whether production will be inhouse or external resources will be hired to create the video.

2. Production Mode

Choosing the right production mode is also a crucial step. The advantage of in-house creatives is that you have the ability to personally address any or all project roadblocks to create content with speed and accuracy. However the disadvantage is: Maintaining in-house resources for video creation is a costly affair and does not make financial sense for many. Among the many advantages of employing external creatives is that you are not limited to a particular skill-set, style, or even geographic location. External agencies can also provide multiple videos, as per the learning needs and course content. The disadvantage of this mode is that in-person collaboration is difficult and often long drawn. Also, quality is an issue, if the client and agency do not agree on aesthetics, design, and other issues. It is wise to choose the one that best suits your organizational as well as learning goals.

3. Video Script

It is important to create the script in collaboration or at least vetting it with in-house content experts like the content marketing team. The learning video needs to reflect the company’s voice and tone and the relevant teams can guide the developers in that direction. Also, some videos have too much script and too little visual context. Use visuals to describe complex concept and save your words for something impactful or to re-enforce facts. This will help avoid getting the video too long as well.

4. Appropriate Audio

Most videos have background music and it is a determining factor whether the video makes the necessary impact on the audiences. Chosen music must reflect values associated with your brand. Many videos also use an audio voice-over. If a voice actor is employed for this, it is essential that your directions are clear and easy to follow. Providing them with a script and expecting them to execute is just not enough. It is important to give them direction as to various nuances to be included, important sections, and so on.

5. The Final Review

The review of the video is the last step that, again, cannot be undervalued. Start by reviewing every second of the footage. Read over any and all textual content within the video. Review the audio separately to fish out inconsistencies or errors. It is also a good idea to have an internal as well as external review done to make sure that the quality of video is perfect.

Implementing A Successful Video-Based Learning Intervention

The first step to this, just like implementing any other kind of learning within an organization, is to get organized. Establish objectives and basic goals that learning intervention needs to satisfy.

Creating And Curating Content

Video-based content is varied – choose the one that is best suited for your audiences. Curate the content best to make sure that learners can find the topics that they need quickly and efficiently. Provide the learners to like or share videos that they have best learnt from – increasing learner participation as well as guiding developers to get an insight on what kind of content is best accepted.

Assessments

Within short bursts of video-based learning, assessments and practice tests can be built in to provide a break from learning as well as a tool to measure the effectiveness of learning. An effective video platform can measure user interaction, engagement, and course assessment as well as completion scores. Administrators can use the analytics to continue to provide content that is effective and take down videos that have proven to be ineffective. Analytics like these can provide quantitative insights to content planning.

Bandwidth Issues

Video- based learning offers an excellent user experience but tends to take up bandwidth and cannot work with slow network connections. Organizations that are serious about adopting a video-based learning strategy should make allowances to view video content offline as well to cater to learners who face a problem of slow internet connection. Strategies at the development stage can also make videos lighter and make sure that they work with slow connections as well – for instances using lightweight images, simpler animations, and so on.

Security Issues

Training content within an organization is its intellectual property. If the organization wants to keep the training content private, public video hosting sites like YouTube have to be avoided. Instead they can host the content on their Learning Management System and have a tight control on who can view, share, or download videos from the organizational LMS.

If you want to know more about successful video-based learning experiences, download the free eBook Learning@Videos - Charting The Evolution, Success & Growing Popularity Of Video-Based Learning.

Related Articles:

  1. Getting Started With Video-Based Learning
  2. 3 Strategies For Delivering Successful Video-Based Learning
  3. Free eBook: Learning@Videos - Charting The Evolution, Success, And Growing Popularity Of Video-Based Learning