After weeks of sharing, discussing and deliberating, earlier this week we announced the winners of our ‘Shoot to Share’ experiment.
The quality of the videos was fantastic, and everyone has their favourite. The number of views alone shows just how valuable our video library is – despite its ‘social learning on a shoestring’ nature. But, as every L&D professional knows, true evaluation relies on more than just stats. We spoke to colleagues, customers, friends and associates to find out what they thought and which videos they found most useful or valuable.
So, without further ado, here are our top three video contributors with a little bit about why we loved what they had to say.
In third place: Craig Taylor, Urenco
Despite Craig’s role as a learning technologist, his video is actually about combining on-screen activity with real-world tasks away from the computer. We asked Craig what his favourite e-learning interaction is and why. He earned his first brownie point by considering his answer from the perspective of a learner as well as a designer – putting yourself in the learner’s shoes is one of our ID mantras. Craig went on to explain that, for him, the best interactions are those that encourage learners to get up and do something to put the e-learning into context or into practice. Free-text responses need a bit of clever thinking in terms of constructive evaluation and feedback, but we’re big advocates of blended learning and so Craig’s preference for thinking beyond the confines of the computer when designing a self-paced e-learning course gets a thumbs-up from us!
In second place: Jack Beaman, Fusion Universal
Fusion Universal certainly made a big impact at Learning Technologies, what with their bright pink stand and their exciting new social learning platform – so who better to provide a succinct summary of what’s important about social learning? Jack hits the nail on the head when he recommends transferring practices from our home lives into our work lives. If we need to find something out at home, we don’t book ourselves onto a course or seek out an expert; we turn to Google, YouTube, or whoever happens to be in the room at the time. This, for Jack, is exactly what social learning in the workplace is all about: capturing knowledge across the organisation, and sharing it as widely as possible. We wholeheartedly agree with Jack’s top three tips for doing this effectively: make it short, instantly accessible, and searchable. We couldn’t have said it better ourselves, Jack!
In first place (drum roll please…): Matt Brewer, Chubb Insurance
Lots of people are able to talk about the things that are wrong with compliance e-learning but struggle to provide tips for how to do it right. Matt is not one of these people! Instead, he makes great use of his 88 seconds to tackle the question of what we can do to make compliance training more effective. What we love about Matt’s video is that he doesn’t just throw out the true-but-tired adjectives (‘practical’, ‘interesting’, ‘realistic’) – instead, he provides some concrete ideas that you can go away and try for yourself. We’re big fans of these top tips from Matt: identify the desired outcomes and select the content accordingly, rather than just chucking everything in; explain why as well as what – provide links to background information or real-life supporting evidence on the topic; and show the consequences of non-compliance, not just for the company, but for individuals. We urge you to keep Matt’s tips in mind when designing your next compliance course – he knows his stuff!
Matt is now the proud new owner of a Flip video camera (the same equipment we used to film all our contributors) – no doubt this fabulous prize will come in handy at family gatherings, but we hope Matt will also use it at work to start developing his own ‘shoot to share’ culture. Congrats Matt, and let us know how you get on!
So, there you have it. Thanks to everyone who contributed to our video library, and to everyone who shared and provided feedback on the clips. If you haven’t yet seen these videos, they and the rest of the library can still be watched on our YouTube channel. Whether you’re looking for tips on making the most of social media, want to find out exactly what a QR code is, or need some ideas for evaluating your e-learning, there’s a video for you!
