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We’ve looked at understanding the customer’s perspective, how to jump start you project, what you should know about designing a course, how to build a project plan, and working with your subject matter experts.
Today’s rapid e-learning tools make creating e-learning courses so much easier. It’s possible to build good e-learning courses with a limited understanding of the technology. However, you can really leverage the rapid e-learning tool’s capabilities and make more engaging content if you have a basic understanding of the multimedia technology.
In this post, we’ll take a quick peek at graphic, audio, and video technology. I’ve also included some additional resources and links to free software.
When using images in your rapid e-learning courses you want to maintain the best quality possible. A lot of this has to do with the image formats. The challenge is to understand the various formats and what’s best for your project.
This article from Wikipedia does a great job explaining image formats and their differences.
Typically, you’ll find the best success if you can stick with vector-based images because they scale better. Here’s a good post that explains more about images in e-learning.
In addition to understanding how the formats work, it is worth having a good graphics editing program to help you with your rapid e-learning development. It allows you to manipulate and customize images, as well as convert and save to various formats.
Good audio quality is a combination of equipment, location, and talent. You need to begin with the best audio quality because you cannot increase it over the original.
The microphone you use affects the quality of your audio. There are many resources online to teach you about microphones. The main thing to understand is that microphones are not the same and how they record audio is different. Take some time to learn the basics of microphone technology. It’ll help you get the best results when you record narration. I also recommend visiting a community forum to ask others what mics they use and how they record their narration.
Ideally, you get to record your audio in a controlled environment like a studio. However, this is usually not the case. Many times you’re forced to record the narration in a conference room with limited control over the ambient sound like office chatter, copying machines, and air conditioning. In this case, make do with what you can. Turn off the air conditioner. Unplug office machines. Ask people to be quiet. Before I record, I like to stick my head out the door and tell everyone to “shut your stinkin’ traps.” This way they know something serious is going on.
The quality of your narration is important to your e-learning course. If you choose to go with non-professional talent, expect that you’ll get what I like to call “presentation quality” audio. The advantage to this approach is that you can produce it quickly and at a good cost. For many projects, this is fine. However, you get what you pay for.
If you find that you want a polished sound, you might want to budget for professional narration. While it appears to cost more than going with non-professional narrators, you can save a lot by avoiding time-consuming edits and audio retakes.
Rapid e-learning’s popularity means that there is an increase in the demand for video. It is important to have a basic understanding of the different video formats, frame rates, streaming, and how to get the best quality for web delivery.
PC Magazine has a good article on using video in PowerPoint. A lot of the information is relevant to rapid e-learning.
Video quality is like audio. You are not going to get better video than the video you start with. It’s important to learn some basics about creating good quality video. Videomaker magazine is a good resource for non-expert video making. They have good tips and techniques and they write to those of us who don’t create videos for a living. It’s a great place to start.
As the rapid e-learning tools evolve, you’ll need to have good end-to-end skills. You don’t need to to be an expert at everything; however you do need to understand the basics. Learn more about multimedia and built a good network of resources to help you when you need it.
Here is a list of some additional resources.
Our last post answers the question of what to do when you’re through.
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Want to learn more? Check out these articles and free resources in the community. |
Here’s a great job board for e-learning, instructional design, and training jobs |
Participate in the weekly e-learning challenges to sharpen your skills |
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Get your free PowerPoint templates and free graphics & stock images. |
Lots of cool e-learning examples to check out and find inspiration. |
Getting Started? This e-learning 101 series and the free e-books will help. |
Another good resource that you should add to the list are free or creative commons licensed images. For free or nearly free images I like stock.xchg (http://www.sxc.hu/) and you can find creative commons licensed images in lots of places like Flickr.com.
-hobbes
Another great software tool for editing audio files is WavePad (and also SoundPad by the same company). They offer a free trial version which you can continue to use. It doesn’t have all the bells and whistles of the Master edition – but it’s great for what I need it to do. It’s also very easy to use. (http://www.nch.com.au/wavepad/)
Wrap it all together and run in my favorite rapid (and option-rich!) development resource: http://www.Moodle.org
Ellen
Which Rapid learning tool is best to develop the elearning courseware?
I often use ‘Waveflow’ for audio recording and editing. It also provides file conversion to MP3 and other formats.
When I record audio at my home computer, I usually create a little audio “booth” by propping a thick blanket up and over me. The results are near perfect.
Lolololol!
My desk has a high back board that perfect for securing one side of the “booth.” I place a chair next to my desk chair and drape the other side of the blanket over the backs of both chairs. The blanket never touches me.
The examples of e-learning are really great! I also, like the recommended books. It’s nice to see other examples, because you get bored with your own stuff. I’m an Instructional Design Development Consultant. Most of my clients allow me to decide the look and feel of e-learning courses. Graphics are interesting. I’d like to try this. I read some correspondence on Don Clark’s site. He mentioned using graphics to engage learners for e-learning. Perhaps, I could sample this in my next assignment.
My Videomaker website has endless amounts of information in the learn section. we also have over 3000 articles.
Hello everyone!
What do you think of those Text-to-Speech software programmes? They turn text into WAV or MP3 files. They sound a bit robot-like and artificial, but it might do well in a language course.
Thanks a lot for your answer! I’ve been away from your nice blog for a while. Now I’ve started to search for some TTS freeware, but so far I haven’t found anything worth its while.
When it comes to design an online language course, where all communicative skills are equally important, the task of finding suitable listening material – and insert it in the LMS – is really hard and slow. So, any suggestions will be welcome!
Daniel
Hello Everyone!
I’m a language teacher and recently I’ve become interested in e-learning. I’ve checked the net for some solutions and what seems to be suitable to me is Dokeos. But I know very little about e-learning solutions.
I’d be really grateful to read you opinion about it. Do you think that it – including the virtual classroom/conference service – could be an effective tool for virtual language courses?
Does anyone have any experience in using Dokeos for such purpose?
Thank you in advance.
What is the best microphone for e-Learning? I prefer using a head-set. Any suggestions?
Years ago, I read some research suggesting that it is instructionally unsound for audio to match the text on the screen word for word. Does anyone have experience to share?
Hi Vic,
it’s true… people listen and read in different pace. So, if you have the audio text all written in a screen, people will feel uncomfortable after some time, since they read faster then listen to the audio.
There’s also personal differences, what makes very difficult to know in which pace peple will be reading the text…
A good solution is offer a button to turn off the sound. I think it’s specially important for e-learning, since people often take the courses in labs, at the workplace, or in a public library, and might not be able to listen to the audio.
Excellent post. So often, people overlook the quality of your microphone and recording environment!
Thank you I look at all of the site .And I think the one that I like is the Paint net and maybe the microsoft site. This is not easy for me to evaluete if I dont have the program to work with it. In Art is not so easy to get a program that I can make a lesson and give a class. Iam looking over everything you sent me and I am haveing a geart deal of information .Thank you
Hi Tom,
I am having trouble finding a download link for MS Movie Maker on the Microsoft web site. I find lots of information about all the great things one can do with the software, but not one link to down load it to my PC. I have Windows XP, SP2.
Just a thought; I use Firefox browser..would that cause any problems?
Any help is much appreciated.
~Kathy
[…] Oct Check out the post on Understanding Multimedia for Rapid E-Learning. While it’s about elearning, the core information is the […]
[…] Wikipedia has a good article on graphic formats. You can also learn more at the Rapid E-Learning Blog on the Rapid E-Learning 101 series. […]
Dear sir,
I have come across a website which successfully deployed e-learning technologies to teach maths. I like to know what technologies have been used to create such content. If cannot figure it out, can you suggest some alternative technologies thatv can be used.
Regards
SBS Reddy, India
[…] Audacity: free open source audio recording and editing software. [original post] […]
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