The Risks and Benefits of Coming To Consensus

I recently received an e-mail asking what I thought about adding 16 new people to the alpha review list for a e-learning course. The idea was to get a wide variety of opinions from people from around the organization and around the globe. To be inclusive and ensure that the course would be well received by the global audience for which it is intended. This is a group that likes to work by consensus, and they wanted to bring that culture to this project.

Now personally, I’m a big fan of consensus. I love talking a problem through with other people until a solution presents itself out of the chaos. In this case, though, the intentions behind the push for consensus and the realities of this approach, turned out to be very disconnected.

Get the team to feel a sense of ownership and pride in the course, so they will be more likely to promote it.

A lot of the edits that were submitted were ultimately ignored, because they didn’t line up with other comments. There was (as one would expect) a lot of discontinuity between the sets of edits. For example – one person loved the color scheme, another person hated it. Whatever we do with that information, somebody is going to think (correctly) that we disregarded their input. Where that happened on content points, the project runs the risk of having enemies, rather than advocates.

Make the decision-making easier.

Consolidating edits from all those people adds a whole lot of work and effort, and that’s before you even get to the decision making. And, at the end of the day, someone still has to write and approve the actual words that will be used. On balance, the approval process took longer and more effort even for the final decision-maker.

Despite the risks and the frustration factor, I still believe it makes sense to work consensus into the creation of e-learning solutions. To do so effectively:

Get consensus as early in the project as possible. Get consensus on the goals and objectives of the project. If people have different goals in mind, it’ll be impossible for them to agree on tactics. Since it’s World Cup season, I’ll use a sports analogy – if you don’t agree on which goal you’re shooting at, you aren’t going to agree on which direction to run.Recognize when you or your team is trying to use coming to consensus on how to describe a process as a way to come to consensus on the process itself. When the process, product or policy you are training people on is new, it is likely to take a lot longer to come to consensus. Plan that time into your project, because you will end up using ig.Decide where consensus is worth the cost. Consensus takes a lot of time to achieve. It’s worth taking the time for the big stuff. But when it comes down to deciding every single word in a course, as long as the words convey the appropriate message it’s probably not worth the time to come up with the perfect phrasing. As much as it pains me to recognize this, the words we craft with such care are often skimmed with much less attention to detail by our learners.What experiences have you had trying to come to consensus on a course? What tips do you live by when planning your projects?

Tags: Consensus, Review

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 17th, 2010 at 2:58 pm and is filed under learning design, project management of learning solutions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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How to improve the quality of your video with keying effects of chroma

Embedding of hue refers to a process of shooting a subject against a background of green or blue. Linwood Dunn was the first to experiment with this concept. Worked with RKO pictures when used mattes to create sweeps in "Flying Down to Rio" in 1933. This film, Dunn has designed a variety of special effects to your home printer.

With the advancement of television, these visuals developed.Digital photography has been modified using these visual effects in greater medida.estos effects are now used in video and images to improve quality.

Steps to use the embedding of chroma:

Set the background to this process of photography. You can use the green or blue color as the background of the case. These two tones are the principal are farther away from the skin tone human.If you use any other color, such as coffee, gets entangled with the skin of the sujeto.La light gets reflected on using light as a white or yellow colors. Blue or green colors are separated from the human skin tone. These tones are masking the background color is smooth and easy.

The key screen of chroma should be uniformly illuminated to avoid any kind of shadows and make soft masking. Make sure that the topic should not be any color that is being used as the background screen. Otherwise, it will be obstructed the masking process.Light the subject properly shot.You can use the key light that illuminates the subject and background.Fill light is used to remove shadows falling on the face or the subject's clothing.Rear light is used for lighting to the bottom of the asunto.Una person also can use amber gels or color to create the visual effect on the tema.puede filters make the subject appear attractive through the use of these gels ámbar.después shoot the subject, a person can digitally replace the substance of the matter by any other photo deseable.puede put the object in a zone of sea beach or fields green with this picture.

This form of photography can use for portrait photography, cinema, modeling and other such purposes.

123Videomagic.com webmaster Myself provide green screen, key software of chroma software, the Edition key of chroma helps customize video and pictures by replacing their backgrounds to seem more attractive.

Using Audio in e-Learning (or not…)

If you’ve read any of my other blog posts (or, say, met me in person) you might get the idea that I like cool technology. You’d be right. You’d think that, given any chance, I’d want to use audio and video and animation in my e-learning courses. (and you’d often be right). But I recently had a situation where I was the one making the case to avoid using moving pictures and audio.

Like any other tool at our disposal, audio is appropriate in some cases and in appropriate in others. There are some very good reasons to use audio, and some very good reasons to avoid audio. You’ll notice all the good reasons to use audio are content-driven, and the good reasons to avoid audio are a more mixed bag.

Your content is best explained using pictures, particularly if they’re moving pictures. Our brains do better listening than reading when the pictures are moving.You want to provide examples of how something sounds. Usually, this means conversation. Occasionally it might be sounds learners need to understand.You believe people would rather listen than read. Please, and I’m begging here people, do not read things to your learners just because you think they’re more likely to listen than to read. Think back, if you will, to the last time someone read a powerpoint to you? Felt like they were wasting your time, didn’t it? That’s because most people read about twice as fast as most people talk.You think audio is more engaging than written text. Words are or aren’t engaging based on how well they’re crafted, and how directly they’re relevant to what you want to know. People will read books just for fun if they’re written well – and they’ll also wade through terribly written technology manuals to figure out something they need to know.More people are auditory learners than visual learners. While a lot has been written about learning styles, pretty much nobody’s able to show it makes a difference in effectiveness.The course needs to go all over the world. Translation of text is much easier than translation of audio.The course is likely to need frequent updating. Audio – particularly audio timed to moving picture (such as a flash animation).is more difficult and time-consuming to update than text.

How do you use audio in your courses? When do you avoid it? And what misnomers about using audio  do you find yourself having to explain over and over to others?

This entry was posted on Friday, September 17th, 2010 at 1:18 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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LOL? Seriously? I wonder what ELSE they think is funny…

When I saw my friend Lee last night, he told me “I looked at your blog the other day.” He’d seen it referenced in the signature line of an e-mail I sent him. He went on to say, ” I read three or four entries. Then I went back up and looked more closely at the title.” He told me that, for a minute there, he had real concerns about our sense of humor. Because he wasn’t seeing ANYTHING on this LOL blog that struck him as particularly funny.

The conversation (which did make me Laugh Out Loud a little) also made me think about acronyms in general and how often they’re a source for misunderstanding. Do you check your learning materials to make sure the language used is commonly understood by your target audience? As a consultant, I have an advantage working with most clients when it comes to jargon and potentially confusing language. Terms that are likely to confuse listeners are likely to confuse me, too, prompting the question. Even that’s not foolproof, though, since it’s human nature to pick up on language and jargon pretty quickly.

And it’s not as though we don’t have jargon, too. “The rule of difference” or “congruence” are terms that make perfect sense to me and my coworkers – because we talk about those principles a lot. When it comes to explaining to subject matter experts why we are making certain design choices in our courses, I have to explain what I mean by those and other learning terms.

So, as with so much in learning (and in life), context is key. And clarity is more difficult to achieve than we sometimes think it will be.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 22nd, 2010 at 8:12 am and is filed under LOL, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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Filmmaking: The Director

The director is responsible for translating a script into visuals that will be turned over to an editor to pull together into a film. However, as the director joins the project in the writing or pre-production phase and does not leave the project until post-production. The director may well be involved in all aspects of the editing phase, such as sound design, music composition, recording, and mixing into the overall sound, until the film is completed. In other words, the director is responsible for the creative supervision of the film from early in its conception to its completion. The director will work most closely with the producer, who is responsible for the organizational and financial supervision of the film from its conception to its conclusion.

The director may either play a secondary role to the scriptwriter or partner with the writer in the pre-production phase. The exact nature of the role depends on the director’s track record, influence, and interest. There is no such variability in the production phase, when the director is clearly responsible. Interpretation of the screenplay, blocking, breakdown of the script into specific shots, and modulation of the performances of actors are some of the specific responsibilities of the director in the production phase. In the post production phase, the director’s interest or influence will either expand or reduce the director’s involvement. Generally, directors are quite involved in this phase even though editors (picture and sound) are driving many decisions.

However, is that writers, directors, and editors share one goal to tell the story as effectively as possible but their contributions differ. Writers use words. Directors use camera shots and performances, and editors use visuals and sound to tell the story for the audience.

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How the green screen? Explains easy English

How does IT work?

Using the software, images or movies remove green background, while the new image as item may occur against a backdrop background or another layer of background video overlay.

Examples of images edited with Chroma Key (Chromakey) technique

Wedding photographyWedding photographers benefit from capture images using the key technique of chroma and Exchange images with request escenas.Todas swinger couples sudden, posing in front of the screen may appear on the beach, in the Church, in Las Vegas, in rural areas or any possible location.

Meteorology - channelTime of men and women and news anchored to stop ahead of a green screen within the study of TV and radar map or temperatures appear instead of the screen, allowing news crew participate in interactive broadcasting.

Scenes of special - effect filmsVideo editing, Final Cut, Sony Vegas and Adobe Premiere tools including production under budget add Hollywood-style film effects.

Tools are needed for the key of chroma?

1. Background - firstly and most importantly, a screen verde.puede be painted wall or laminated cloth, will work even a ready product was bought in a shop online retailer.

2. Images - images and background to replace.Movie if replace another movie clip.

3. Light - lighting is the task more difícil.El theme should be uniformly illuminated and if there is enough light shooting indoor, shoot outdoors in its lugar.Preferiblemente, weather cloudy, overcast days provide the right amount of light.

4.-Software such as green screen Wizard tools effectively removes screen to superimpose an image or movie file.

Green screen allows a subject to appear in front of an image using the key color of técnica.Chromakeying allows the Elimination of the screen, and layered another image below, the subject appears above the image as it really is in the image.

Download the free guide that reveals 10 Amazing techniques using green screen that transforms the even the less Experienced photographers in the very knowledgeable pros, lower increase at least 15% - 25% in each individual project... assured!

Similarities – and Differences – Between Training and Communication

“I need training.”

Don’t get me wrong, I dearly love to hear those words when I pick up the phone, because it means that I might get the chance to help someone and work on a new exciting project.  The problem, of course, is that a pretty significant percentage of the time that declaration is just not quite…true.

Training, as far as I’m concerned, means that the person going through it can do something at the end that they couldn’t do at the start. Most of what businesses call training actually isn’t training by that definition. It’s communication.

Training and communication share a lot of elements, but they have some distinct differences, as well.

Clear, concise language that gets right to the heart of the matter.Clear, concise language that gets right to the heart of the matter.Say the same thing more than once, applying the “Repeat to Remember” brain rule.Maybe say the same thing more than once, applying the “Repeat to Remember” brain rule.Use worked examples to help the audience see the principles you’re talking about in action.Maybe used worked examples to help the audience see the principles you’re talking about in action.Identify and focus on how the information will actually be put into practice on the job.No need to identify or emphasize how the information will actually be put into practice.Give the audience opportunities to practice the key skills you are trying to teach.

Communication is very effective for most business goals. Really, the biggest difference is that in a straight communication piece, you aren’t trying to help the recipient APPLY the information. That’s appropriate an a lot of situations, either because the recipients will already know how to apply the information you provide, or because it’s not really information you need them to apply. Both happen in business all the time.

That’s not to say it’s a good practice. I would submit that if you can’t identify HOW someone needs to use the information you want to provide them, perhaps you shouldn’t be providing it. At the very least, you shouldn’t be pushing it. Instead, focus on making it available to those who want it. More importantly, focus on making it valuable to those you believe need it – so they will seek it out on their own.

That’s where an instructional design focus can be helpful even for communication projects. Instructional design is all about giving people information in a way that lets them apply it to the work they do every day. Even if you aren’t going to truly train people on a topic, you still typically want the information to be constructed in a way that makes it useful.

Do you distinguish between training and communication projects? How are they different when you create them?

This entry was posted on Monday, August 23rd, 2010 at 4:57 pm and is filed under learning design, learning transfer, project management of learning solutions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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