It’s amazing who you bump into on the train….

Regular readers will know that I ‘moonlight’ as the Social Media correspondent for an industry-wide communications channel called Nuclear TV. (if the tax-man is reading this, then it’s as part of my day-job, so calm down!)

I recently had the Pullizter-worthy idea to conduct a number of TV reports on the use of Learning Technologies and Social Media within other industries, businesses and corporates. I have to admit that my intentions were a little selfish as I was hoping to demonstrate to my own industry the benefits of adopting, engaging and encouraging the use of such tools.

In order to generate interest in the project I put out a tweet asking for willing interviewees and was contacted by Niall Gavin from Firstgroup plc.

Here’s what he had to say….

Untitled from Craig Taylor on Vimeo.

If you feel that you have a story that you would like to share with others relating as to how your organisation is using learning technologies to add value to the business, (particularly where you have used them in a regulated, compliance driven market) then why not drop me a line.

The interviews will be hosted on the NLTV channel as well as this blog, if the interview is less than 15mins then I will place it on YouTube and you will also be provided with the edited footage and separate mp3 file for your own use.

Go on….. you know you want to….

View the original article here

It’s amazing what you can find…

…… when you really start looking!

Regular readers will be aware that I am currently undertaking an online Rapid eLearning Development programme which is being facilitated by @robhubbard.

The programme is broken down into ‘Building Blocks’ with this weeks blocks centring around Analysis/Design & producing video content for rapid elearning programmes.

It was the video assignment that really got me thinking as I have ‘dabbled’ with producing video content in the past using my Flip camera and the Flipshare software that comes packaged with it, but have always wanted (needed) a reason to push myself beyond the rather simple content that it produces.

The assignment criteria for the assignment was:

Your video should include:Someone speaking, either straight to camera or in an interview formatAt least two shotsSoundTitlingThink about what you want to communicate in the videoThink about the types of shots you want to useQuickly storyboard the video by sketching out each shotIf you are shooting outside in the daytime you probably won’t need lightsIf you are shooting inside use one or two powerful lightsShoot your video and record the soundRecord multiple takesEdit and title the video using a video editor – we recommend some belowTitle the speaker(s) when they first appear Use simple transitions between shotsCompress your video for web deliveryUpload the video to YouTube, call it ‘Your Name ReD Video Assignment’ and add a link to it on the Videos page on the Network. For a tutorial on how to do this view the How-To Guide: ‘The Network – Add video’ on the Main pageAs a comment add:A description of the videoThe technologies and equipment you usedAny challenges you faced and how you overcame them and What you would do differently if you attempted the same project again

………… I wasn’t overly keen in doing this as previous versions of Movie Maker have been….. ‘disappointing’, however credit where credit is due, I was very, very pleased with the functionality of it.

Admittedly, I doubt that it will be the first piece of editing software that James Cameron will reach for when he undertakes his next blockbuster. But if you are looking for an intuitive, feature-rich and (if you own a Windows 7 PC) – free piece of editing software, then maybe you should take a look…

Anyway, the proof is in the pudding as they say, so here is my assignment submission. As always feedback is always welcome – at this point everybody becomes a George Lucas

View the original article here