Video killed the radio star

Reporting on the third in a series of Learning Technology webinars that Video Arts is running with Training Journal, Martin Addison describes the changing face of video in training and offers top tips on how to make the most of the medium.

Enlivening learning with digital video

The long and distinguished history of video in training stretches back to the Second World War, when training films were first created and used by the military. Designed to inform or instruct, they were projected in auditoriums to large groups of personnel. The big attraction of using film was its impact and its ability to provide authoritative information quickly and consistently.

These initial training films were not always the drab affairs you might imagine. Humour was used almost from the outset to achieve greater impact. Indeed, Sir Anthony Jay - who wrote the Yes, Minister TV series and co-founded Video Arts in 1972 with John Cleese - claims that the whole idea of using humour in corporate training films first stemmed from a wartime basic training film called Muller is Grateful - produced by the British Ministry of Information - which used humour to show how to load and use a rifle safely.

As technology developed, 16mm film began to be used for industrial film making and, in the 1970s, the VHS video tape - which allowed longer playing time, faster rewinding and fast-forwarding - galvanised the market. Soon training films began to be replaced by training and educational videos.

Benefits of video

The reasons why video became a popular training tool are still very relevant today. Video stimulates, engages and entertains people, triggering them to think, feel and do things differently. It allows quite complex ideas, particularly ones around soft skills behaviour, to be put across in a short space of time.

Through storytelling and parable, video can provide context for the training message and it unites learners by giving them a common frame of reference, which means the trainer can keep referring back to examples in the video as the session progresses. Video can also unleash the experience and knowledge of delegates. It can be used very effectively as a catalyst for conversation and to get delegates to contribute to each other’s learning.

A major attraction for delegates is that video encourages a ‘less-threatening’ training style, one that doesn’t involve people role playing or being put ‘on the spot’ in front of colleagues - something that many of us find embarrassing. Also, by showing a scenario that portrays someone else with the same issues, delegates can be encouraged to admit to themselves that they too need to change.

Video is also very flexible. As well as being a powerful medium for soft skills training, it can be used to impart knowledge and deliver practical information at the point of need. For example, engineers can watch a video showing them how to fix an item, before mirroring the learning and undertaking the action themselves.

There’s a Chinese proverb that says: ‘I hear and I forget; I see and I remember; I do and I understand’. Simply telling people what to do has limited impact. By using video to engage learners, a trainer can make the learning points memorable and get people thinking. This encourages them to move on to the next stage, where they put their learning into practice.

Video as a support tool

In the early days of training videos, a trainer would show the entire video and build their session around the content. However a 30-minute video was not always digestible for the learner, so pioneering trainers began to use video content more judiciously, either as an ice-breaker to set the tone for the day, as an example or case study, to reinforce key points or to review the learning and re-cap the themes that were discussed. Video has been utilised at each stage of the learning cycle, to improve the retention of messages and to make training more effective. With the advent of DVDs, split into learning ‘chapters’, using video clips became much easier.

A major step forward was made when video stopped being solely a tool for the trainer. With the development of e-learning, individuals began to access video-based content outside of the classroom, for self-study, reflection and just-in-time learning.

Today, with the advent of digital video and streaming, video has become a viral tool. Like clip art, digital video clips can be incorporated into PowerPoint presentations, Word documents and used on websites, intranets and in emails.

This overcomes the need to move the physical resources around, which was always a limiting factor for video libraries: if you were using a video in Newcastle, you couldn’t use it in Birmingham at the same time. However, when you stream video clips over an intranet or the internet, they can be viewed by anybody at any time and anywhere.

Do-it-yourself learning

The technological developments that have allowed greater flexibility in the use of video are leading many learning & development practitioners to use digital video clips to enliven in-house e-learning, blended learning or classroom-based training programmes. Some L&D practitioners are even utilising video and creating their own engaging and reusable learning programmes which can be shown online or offline in the classroom, on the intranet and in management or team briefings.

It’s not just commercially-available digital video clips that are being used. YouTube and other web-based clips are also being adopted and some enterprising organisations are even creating their own clips. For example, one large UK company provides staff with pocket-sized video cameras so they can film anyone doing anything particularly well and then post it up on the intranet as an example of good practice.




For those looking to use video in training, Colm Gibson, Learning Resources Architect at Video Arts, offers the following tips:

• Always focus on the learner. People learn nothing when they’re asleep and very little when they’re bored. If they are to take anything in, they have to be engaged and they learn best if they are emotionally involved. The whole point of using video is to better engage the learner. Don’t get so hung up on creating great learning that you forget your main objective. Remember, a video clip won’t change someone’s personality but it may influence them to change their behaviour and it can certainly develop knowledge, attitude and skills.
• Frame it. Like all the best works of art, a video clip needs a ‘frame’. Always set your video in context, so learners know what they are watching and why - and what they’re meant to do as a result.
• Don’t assume that everyone watching the video is pleased to be there and thinks that they need to change their attitude, skills or knowledge. Use humour to shake people out of their complacency. Give them a scenario, showing how not to do something, that they can recognise and laugh at because they see themselves or their colleagues in the scenarios. They’ll own the learning if they’re in on the joke.
• Don’t lay on the learning with a trowel. Your audience will learn more if they are given the opportunity to draw their own conclusions.
• Use a ‘wrong way, right way’ lesson structure. ‘Wrong way’ scenes make excellent case studies. They provoke discussion and provide an enjoyable introduction to an exercise. Asking learners to analyse the situation and what has been done wrong helps them to draw out the lessons for themselves. The ‘right way’ scenes can then reinforce these lessons.
• Don’t use video to fill time. Always have a strong learning point and use your video clip to establish common ground.
• Look for opportunities to get the learning out into the workplace. For example, use video clips to create pre-course and post-course email messages or to support self-study and informal learning. Also think about incorporating video clips into your online management manuals or guidelines, to show staff how to deal with a specific issue or manage a situation in practice, when and where it arises. This can help to bring alive your people management policies. Finally, make use of any information channels that currently exist. For example, when sending product information to the sales force, include a link to a three-minute video clip on negotiation skills.

As for the future, as connectivity and bandwidth improve further, organisations will be able to extend the reach of learning, by pushing content out to people through their mobile phones. The role of the learning department will no longer be to provide learning at specific times, Instead, it will be to help individuals to make the best of the learning that’s available to them and to access it on-demand.

As such, the future of learning can be summed up in four Js: just in time, just for me, just enough and just for fun. No doubt, video will continue to play a central role.

• Learn  more about using video