Secrets of Video Training: We Betray the Instructional Designer's Guild

Instead of dividing time eras into BC and AD, instructional designers could use BP and AP instead, meaning Before PowerPoint or After PowerPoint. Once, we were a tiny guild of specialists who jealously guarded the secrets of blueprinting effective teaching media and practiced our arcane arts for pathetically puny fees. Then came presentation software (now dominated by Microsoft PowerPoint) and every college professor, every middle-management suit, every city council meeting petitioner was suddenly P.T. Barnum. But did you notice? AP era media shows may be zippier and more colorful, but they're often as muddled, verbose and boring as ever.

What's this got to do with video? Instructional videos frequently use PowerPoint presentation methods, but a more important idea is that even sophisticated software cannot produce effective training media by itself. The dark secrets of the Instructional Designers Guild are still essential to creating useful educational programs. I am about to betray my guild and divulge those secrets.

Videomaker frequently covers various aspects of educational videos in depth. Here we'll focus on the typical decision process an instructional designer uses in planning a training program. We'll discuss job specifications, program content, presentation method, presentation media, strategic and tactical organization.

Step One is to describe the job at hand by answering five specific questions.

What is the topic? That's an easy one. Let's say: "Using a Sewing Machine."

What are your objectives? That is, what do you want your program to achieve? Using a sewing machine? That's not a useful objective. How do you judge whether the program does that for the learner? An objective is a goal that can be measured, like "Learners will be able to make a shirt." If they make a competent shirt, they pass. That's a measurable learner objective.

Who are your target learners? Workers in a shirt factory need one set of skills, while home sewers need a somewhat different set. A good training program addresses a specifically targeted audience.

What's your delivery system? Or, in jargon-free English, how will you show this program? Will it be shown on a big screen to a class or on a home screen to one learner at a time? Will the program be computer-based for easy stop-and-start interaction with the learner? How you display the program will affect the way you design it.

What's your budget? You could start with an introductory tour of a Husqvarna sewing machine plant in Sweden or just borrow a machine from a cooperative local store; it all depends on how much $$ you have for your project. An imaginative designer can make a cheap show as instructionally effective as a big production.

With the basic description of your program set, you're ready to identify specific content.

To focus more tightly on the content, you'll want to answer another four questions.

What is the scope of the content? Mastering a modern sewing machine could be a six-week course. How much of the process can you deal with in a single program and which part should you choose? Let's say you limit your scope to the computer-controlled functions of a modern sewing machine. Since stitching fancy patterns is a computer-driven function, let's plan the scope of the content to include making an embroidered shirt.

How much detail will you include? You could show the content in just three steps: (1) Thread the machine with embroidery color, (2) select a computer-controlled embroidery pattern and (3) guide the material through the machine. At the other extreme, you could show each step with a dozen sub-steps. For example, selecting the thread type and weight, loading the bobbins, selecting and installing the correct needle, threading the machine and adjusting the thread tension are all important before you even start stitching. You have to decide the level of detail in advance and sometimes it will vary from one section of the program to the next. Loading a bobbin is basic stuff, so you might give it a quick once-over. Customizing a pre-programmed stitch pattern might need much greater detail.

How dense will your presentation be? That is, how fast will you present each point (at whatever level of detail)? For example, you could show threading the machine in a series of close shots that present only the important parts of the process. Alternatively, you could repeat each step for clarity or maybe show the process in slow motion.

How long will your program be? This is the last content question because it's pre-determined by other considerations: the scope, detail and density you've selected, combined with the practical limits of learner brains and rear-ends. In practical terms, a training program should not exceed ten minutes and rarely go over 15. If you can't fit the material into that length, break it into multiple programs.