I enjoyed the article on streaming video formats but….Here is an excerpt from todays CIO republic technote.
“Denney cited one example of a client who halved its monthly sales-training costs after shifting from a program that combined print and satellite television to one that used Internet-delivered text and video.”
While this may be an option, It is still a costly option for a plan of action that returns the same results as the original plan. When I go out and spend a ton of money I usually want to end up with a better solution than I previously had.
A more thorough solution would undoubtedly be a training mechanism that allows for data-tracking while providing an interactive experience. My first choice would be Macromedia’s Flash5. Flash5 takes advantage of streaming media with none of the bandwidth issues of video. Flash, also, utilizes streaming mp3 for audio. The training mechanism can then provide for a reaction from the user in real time as opposed to the ancient paradigm of ‘watch and learn’. It is standard knowledge that hands-on learning is more efficient and more effective.
The only reason to use a bandwidth hog such as streaming video is when you absolutely have to recreate the original. i.e. television shows, motion picture clips, live broadcasts….
In any other instance the use of interactive media with always generate a more thorough solution while generating benefits that can never be acheived with streaming video alone. Streaming video will not allow me to demonstrate the installation of a pc card to my techinicians with full 3d rotation controlled by the user and answering questions through out the training while tracking those answers, the time it took to answer those questions, and inumerable alternate scenarios that will generate data that can later be used to improve the existing modular training mechanism.
