Bottom-Line Performance

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.

It’s been awhile since I tackled one of The Learning Circuits Blog Big Question of the Month – but this one is intriguing ” “Does the discussion of how the brain learns impact your e-learning design?”

I feel pretty confident answering yes, – and only partly because I have a boss who’s a huge fan of research-based instructional design. We literally spent half of our last company-wide meeting reviewing the basics from learning researchers like Ruth Clark, Robert Gagne, and Benjamin Bloom.

One of the criticisms I saw from some of the bloggers who called the brain-based instruction craze a lot of hooey was that the principles were just “common sense”. The problem with common sense is that some of what I see as common practice doesn’t necessarily make sense with what we know about how people learn. Here are the top three “common sense” practices I see that run completely counter to what we know about how people learn.

Interesting facts will help the learner better remember the information

Ruth Clark’s coherence principle is pretty clear that extraneous information detracts from learning. This extraneous information won’t drive performance, even if the learner does remember it. And the space it takes up in the learner’s brain might well be better used for performance-driving information.

Often, subject matter experts want to compound the damage by putting the interesting but irrelevant information right at the start of the training. The basic instructional design principle of primacy tells us that right up front is prime learning real estate – definitely not the place to put something you don’t really care if the learner remembers or not.

Pictures engage the learner

The multimedia principle (Ruth Clark again – we like her stuff quite a lot around BLP) says that pictures have to be relevant to be useful in learning. Sounds obvious enough – but how many powerpoint slides or e-learning pages have you seen with graphics that are clearly there to just make the page look better? Pretty is good – pretty and relevant is required for the instruction to be effective.

Practice is a nice-to-have, but can be skipped if you run out of time

While I very seldom hear clients talk about this one when designing instructor led training, we’ve all seen it happen. Instructors run out of time, or simply want to win points with their audience by getting done early, and the first thing to go is the exercises. We’ve all heard that practice makes perfect – and most of us have heard the nitpicky version, “perfect practice makes perfect”. Common sense, sure, but also often ignored in practice.

Leannne standing on the green screen.

Happy Fourth of July! As I thought about all of the pyrotechnics of the coming holiday, the special effects the video crews will use to produce that TV special with the Boston Pops and the fireworks from the White House lawn, I had to reflect on my own special effects moment from earlier this week, a green screen video shoot.

The project we’re working on has a learning agent that guides participants through the course. We’re using a combination of still photography and audio along with green screen video. The shot went great, but we did learn a few tricks for future green screen videos:

• Use a teleprompter. Even if it’s just a few short sentences, it’s hard to remember marks and the script. And since you really want the talent to hit the marks, lessen the burden on the script side.
• Bring sticky notes! If the learning agent is pointing to buttons on screen, you’ll need to mark them off on the green screen, but sticky notes on the monitor will make sure the people watching know the agent is hitting the mark.
• Keep it short. Green screen videos are shot in one take, if possible. Thirty seconds to a minute is really about all you need. Another reason the teleprompter is key, too.
• Use props. The learning agent feels more comfortable when he or she has something to do, besides walk across the screen. Props that illustrate key points give him or her action to take. Picking up a book from a table can be easier than trying to talk to the camera.
• Set cues for moving hands or changing position. Not everyone feels comfortable on green screen. Offering suggestions of when to move their hands or even walk a bit on screen can be helpful for new talent. We recommended keeping your hands above your waist, as you’re more likely to gesture with them naturally as you speak.
•  Have hairspray. Editing green screen can get complicated if the learning agent has lots of fly-aways. The hair will get edited out when the background is removed. Our wonderful talent was thoughtful enough to bring her own, but next time I know I’ll have an extra can with me!

If you’re getting started with your own green screen video shoot or any video shoot for that matter, check out I Came, I Saw, I Learned for production tips and tips on purchasing the correct equipment for green screen.

What other tips do you have for producing green screen? I definitely want suggestions before I do our next video shoot!