I started my career making educational video films as a part of an University Grants Commission program in India. It was a job that paid me (an eager 20 year old) next to nothing. The reward, however, came in the form of 3 takeaways that are as relevant and powerful to this day:
- People like to 'share' knowledge. They like to 'educate'. And the key motivation is respect, not money. I had Nobel Prize winners, professors, television personalities like Charu Sharma wade through scripts with me and brave long shoots for no more than a coffee and a snack from the dingy office canteen. 'All in the spirit of giveback' ...Charu never tired of reminding me.... lest I assume that my power of persuasion had anything to do with it.
- We learn best from stories. Takes me back to the time I was struggling to get a concept through and my camera man gave me a sound piece of advice that business experts credit themselves for discovering. :-) "Humanize it", he told me. "Explain it to me in the form of a story...with examples I can relate to."
- The visual medium is a story teller's best friend. It brings in an unbeatable combination of clarity, speed and reach. I have never referred to the television as the 'idiot box' after my stint at UGC. Too powerful to trivialize. Saddens me though when I see the power being used to misguide and manipulate... but that's a story for another time.
Warms my heart therefore, to see these takeaways mirrored in the work that Salman Khan (not to be confused with the Bollywood superstar) is doing with Khan Academy.
Depresses me too, because I have not been able to harness and harvest the value of the 'video vault' at work...as yet. Have yet to get to a tool that will get an Eureka whoop out of me....
Screenr is the closest that I have come to.
Do you know of other tools and examples? What have your workplace experiences been with using video as a medium to harness and harvest the 'social' construct? What will enable or has enabled 'share and learn'?
As Salman puts it, the last thing you really need to hear when you are trying to learn something is "Do you understand this"? Yet, I am going to go ahead and say - "Yes, I understand". I have always been a huge fan of the use of videos in Learning and Designed my first course with Videos of an Instructor way back in 2008. In A course launched in January this year, and one that is receiving a lot of appreciation from one and all, I used as many as 22 animation videos of real life examples to drive home the point. Creating these videos were fun as well as exciting, and based on the feedback received from a Focus Group, 'enriching'. I really wish we could use more videos in Learning... As Prasanna puts it, it would be criminal to not harness the video vault at work. Let's go out there, search for/create such little gems, and make Learning Smart as well as creative Art ;)
ReplyDeleteWhat a great thought! This is perfect example of technology at its best use of mankind. The opportunities Khan indicated are numerous. This has the potential of a paradigm change in future learning.
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