Today’s L&D professionals are tasked to create more video without breaking the budget. There’s also increasing pressure to ensure that these videos are effective at supporting learning and performance goals. What are some of the metrics used to track instructional video, and how do you make sense of those numbers?

Producing videos can be a complex endeavor for learning professionals attempting to bring their courses to life. By incorporating appropriate project management principles, instructional designers can create a smooth process for video production and avoid having to reshoot critical footage they need for a course.

Video has traditionally been difficult, time-consuming, and expensive, but it doesn’t need to be. Today, eLearning professionals can produce live-action and animated videos easily, quickly, and on a budget. But which do you choose, live-action or animated? It can be challenging to determine which option will best tell your story and engage your learners while also making the most sense given your budget and time constraints.

Training comes most commonly in the form of a webinar or in-person presentation with a slide deck. You get a lot of information, presentation of complex topics, and a two-way communication street where questions from the audience can be addressed as they come up. These are all good things. But sometimes you don’t want to know how to build a watch—you just need to know what time it is.

The use of online video to support performance is a hot topic these days. But when is it a viable solution? How can it improve performance? And, most importantly, how can you build a solution that uses it effectively?

Technology has made it possible to offer scalable, experiential, and collaborative learning across the globe, while instructional videos can serve as a key delivery mechanism for content from instructor to students. Nevertheless, instructional videos often are too long, too dense, and offer little room for learners to interact with the content.

Traditional video is an important and engaging component of training programs and curriculum development. However, traditional video only allows learners to see the linear path of video projects. What if you could give learners the ability to fully immerse themselves into the videos they’re watching? With 360-degree video, you do just that.

Have you heard the saying “If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video is worth a million”? Video content can explain very complex concepts, but usually lacks good navigation or interactivity. eLearning, on the other hand, delivers a great user experience, but often comes up short at conveying meaning with just words and pictures. Combining eLearning with video can give you the best of both worlds.

Your company keeps growing, but your training department doesn’t. You feel like your current course development methods are making it harder to keep up with compressing development timelines, and yet you’re being asked to create more courses, different courses, smaller courses, and courses that are easier to access. Sales doesn’t like logging in to the LMS every time they need to take some training. And you’re getting tired...

The common approach, when introducing live video into virtual learning applications, is to create an online lecture room where participants watch and can be seen by the lecturer and can easily join the conversation. But this is just the tip of the iceberg! eLearning teams must build on the dramatically changed expectations of new generations brought up in a social revolution that has put live video communication in the hands of over three billion people around the world.

Workplace learning is a two-way relationship between a company’s desire to stay competitive and employees’ need for information to engage job functions. With the struggle for competitive advantage expected to only accelerate, it pays dividends to create a flexible and technology-enabled learning ecosystem that can foster the future generations in the workforce.

When videos, presentations, and slide shows start to look ho-hum and just aren’t holding your learners’ attention anymore, it’s time to step it up. Say goodbye to boring bullets and static graphics, and give your audience something to keep them watching.

Poor-quality explainer videos can distract your learners and prevent them from getting the message. Many L&D professionals operate on a tight budget and do not have a lot of video editing experience. How do you create professional-level videos that can be delivered on any platform or eLearning tool?

Proper lighting in your video makes a world of difference in how your viewers perceive your product. But good lighting can be a challenging aspect of video production. Have you found yourself asking the following questions: “How do I know which lights to get? How do I determine the correct lighting placement? How many lights should I use? Should I buy or rent them?”

Everybody has experienced video training—the good, the bad, and the ugly. But by taking a "real-life" approach to video content, you can up retention and create a unique training experience that goes beyond just training on ideal situations. 

At one point or another, you’ve probably been forced to endure some kind of training that made you want to pull your hair out. You click through the slides as fast as you can, or you stare blankly at the lecturer reading bullet points from each slide. What if you could transform those mandated training programs into something engaging and entertaining instead?

Video is a great medium for learning content; however, designing and developing great videos can be challenging and labor-intensive. Additionally, gaining stakeholder buy-in on a curriculum based on microlearning, like videos, can be a challenge.

You have a phone and tablet, and you use them for four or five tools and applications, but there is so much more you can do with them. Mobile devices present fantastic opportunities to create and modify photos, videos, and graphics. You are only limited by your own imagination.

Mobile, games, and video are all meaningful endeavors offering unique value propositions, but how do they fit together? Each can be linked, but has unique properties as well. How do you make sense of the opportunities?

A government office was going through a major reorganization; there was confusion and concern about the future organization. Each division had been working with minimal contact with other divisions, which resulted in a culture of lack of trust and personal connection with other employees. The problem was intensified because employees worked in various geographic locations and time zones. Learning leaders needed to help the employees understand the new organization and purpose.

Most people interact with social media via their smartphone on a continual basis throughout the day. Smartphones and social media are integrated into daily life. Interactive and social learning can maximize learning opportunities by engaging in actions that people are already accustomed to.

New for FocusOn this year! This is a popular session being offered twice. It's also available as session 1012.

According to the Pew Research Center, 92 percent of adults ages 18 – 29 reported watching videos on a video-sharing site. This is becoming a norm for learning and obtaining new knowledge. Live-action videos with SMEs are not always possible because of the costs and time associated with this practice. If you think advanced animation that is engaging, entertaining, and fun seems out of reach for most eLearning professionals, think again!

The industry is saying that video is the way to go for online learning—great. But before you get started, it is important to think strategically about why and how video will create the most value in your course. This session will explore the best questions to ask before you incorporate (or don’t incorporate) video into your courses.

Performance support videos are everywhere. From YouTube to the workplace, you can learn pretty much anything by watching a step-by-step video. Some of these videos are good; others, not so much. So how can you be sure that the video you are producing for your client or organization is high-quality—and effective?

Interactive videos increasingly are seen as one of the most effective ways to demonstrate a desired behavior while maximizing learner retention. However, the high cost of external video production combined with expensive interactive video authoring tools often means that this solution is out of reach for many organizations—but it doesn’t have to be.

Microlearning is a way of teaching and delivering content to learners in small, very specific bursts. Microlearning videos can teach people how to use different systems within an organization effectively and efficiently—including systems for travel, finances, document management, procurement, and more.

HBO has an app. So do other major TV channels like Comedy Central and ESPN. With major media brands like these distributing content via television-based apps, and an increasing number of people cutting the cable cord, television-based app development is a rapidly growing segment of media. Learning media and content isn’t far behind; in fact, it’s already happening. However, most developers have little understanding of the television app ecosystem and how L&D can benefit.

Many professionals developing eLearning content focus on SCORM or static content. Video is often thought of as an expensive and difficult modality, and is outsourced to agencies and external production houses. It’s so helpful for teaching others to use software, yet there is a fear of getting started with video and committing valuable time and resources to its creation. Constant changes in software interfaces add to these concerns.

Have you seen videos where a green screen or blue screen wasn’t used properly? There’s a thin green line around the edge of the actor or a green hue on their clothes, which makes the video less authentic and usable. Filming someone on a green screen can be a challenging aspect of video production.

Visual directions provide the framework upon which producers, editors, and animators base their content production, and many IDs introduced to today’s expanding eLearning departments lack familiarity with and experience in writing targeted visual directions for video scripts. This can result in increased costs in the form of ongoing revisions and can undermine the quality of the final product.

Organizations often spend a lot of time and money to create awesome videos for learning, but don’t track how effective the videos are. How do you know if your videos are effective? Are learners watching the videos? For how long? Having this kind of data would help you create better and more effective videos, so how do you track these types of measurements?

Audio is easily neglected in online multimedia, especially for learners viewing on mobile devices with relatively substandard audio playback hardware (tiny speakers or earbuds). In fact, audio has not undergone the same rapid stylistic change that video has in the YouTube era—viewers still expect rich, clean, and well-balanced audio. Poor audio is always the first signal of an amateurish production.

Shooting video according to the script is one thing, but what about when the content is the conversation, or an interview with live Q&A? What about when there is no power to call “Cut!” and start again? No fixing it in post? No webinar agenda? How can you best leverage live interactions without compromising the recorded asset?

You would like to design and develop animated videos, but you’re not sure how to get started or apply the tools you have to create new content. You may have a subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud but may not be sure how to get started with Adobe After Effects.

Professional development generally means taking time away from your work to go and learn a concept, then return to your team, who may have a “What are you going to make us do now?” attitude. Take a moment to think “what if.” What if professional development were delivered where and when it was important to you? What if you did not have to leave your team to participate in behavior-based professional development? What if your professional development created greater cohesion within your team? What if your professional development were focused directly on issues and content that were meaningful to you and your team?

Everyone has seen truly terrible training videos at some point—everything from awkward educational films that put you to sleep in school to unintentionally hilarious training videos that have you laughing more than learning. It’s abundantly clear that just because content has been put into video form doesn’t mean it’s something people want to watch. But while these training video failures may not be fantastic at what they were designed to do, there’s a surprising amount that we can learn from their mistakes.

Today, anyone with a smartphone has video capabilities—just look at the number and variety of videos posted on YouTube, Facebook, or Twitter. In addition to phones, you now have drone capabilities and cameras that you can attach to yourself and your pets or embed in your doorbell. The possibilities are seemingly endless. So how do you take advantage of these options for training?

The da Vinci Surgical System was an important medical innovation, but not necessarily one that was quick for hospital staff to learn to use. With such a complex product, hospital OR staff needed not only training on how to transport the system, set it up, and use it during surgery, but also follow-up support to help them master interacting with it in the hospital operating room. This support needed to be quick, so staff could quickly access the information necessary to work effectively with the system, and it needed to be available at any time and on any device. The solution was to blend video and performance support, creating a video portal staff could access at their exact time of need.

What’s the best camera for a shoot? The definitive answer is, “The one you have with you.” The ubiquity of the mobile camera means that when you’re in the presence of great instructional content, it can become video in seconds. In addition, viewers are developing a special respect for authentic-looking video—footage that looks raw, real, and genuine. This is why many training videographers have moved to iPhones as their main production equipment, even on high-production-value shoots. So how can you benefit from this stylistic trend?

Video is trending in L&D for good reasons. When video-based learning projects go right, they can resonate well with their audience and make a huge impact. However, when they go wrong, they can go very, very wrong. Why? Because there’s a substantial amount of financial, legal, branding, security, and relationship risk introduced when incorporating video into your learning strategy. So how can you safely create a more video-centric culture? And what processes and protocols need to be in place before you move forward?

In a world of short attention spans and the need to “break through the clutter,” how can you ensure your learning videos leave your audience remembering your message? Maybe it’s time to look outside L&D for inspiration and toward a field that already does this well: advertising. If advertisements can influence people to purchase items they don’t need, are there ways to use this field’s secrets to influence learners (and do this without their feeling manipulated)?

With an ever-increasing number of people spending more time watching online video than they do watching TV, it’s no surprise that the demand for video content is higher than ever. As you might expect, this trend is also leading to a higher expectation for video communication and training in the workplace. Fortunately, as it continues to grow in popularity, video is also becoming easier and more cost-effective for anyone to produce as long as they have the right tools to help.

Videos in learning isn't new, but the video medium is seeing rapid expansion in use, from microlearning to interactivity. Before you can move forward, you need buy-in, and that can be challenging. Barriers to approval can range from bandwidth and hosting to skill sets and equipment costs.

Learning videos can range from astoundingly effective to painfully bad. And while most people can at least create content that avoids the latter category, it’s not always easy to know what makes the difference between video content that truly resonates with your audience and content that is fine but forgettable. Thankfully, one of the best solutions is to take a closer look at examples that work well.

New for FocusOn this year! This is a popular session being offered twice. It's also available as session 506.