RKCS Learning Solutions

Earlier this week, I was involved in a forum discussion and another user asked for some advice about creating a course. In trying to create the course, he was operating under the premise that the modules created should be no longer than 15-20 minutes long, have 2-3 objectives and a couple other specifics which I am not remembering at this point. While its good to have a foundation, I’m not so sure I agree that there MUST be a specific number of items in every course. I’m not sure that every course needs to be a specific length. BUT, we do live in an age where information must be delivered fairly quickly and intensely in order to grab the majority of a learner’s attention. So, while the days of the 1 hour course are probably gone, I’m not sure I would lock a course into 20 minutes. Why? Well, here are a few of my thoughts:

1. You are assuming length ONLY by audio. There is no way to know how long the learner actually spends reading/exploring (assuming that you built in the option for the learner to explore **eyebrows raised**);

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It’s an excellent thing when companies actually listen to their consumer base and incorporate the features that they are asking for. TechSmith released its version of Camtasia for the Mac a few months ago and “wowed” many with its release. The interface was very un-Windows like and appealed to many dedicated Mac users. Most of these user had been using Telestream’s Screenflow and in fact compared Camtasia to this application. In many ways they were very similar and for the most part a ScreenFlow user had no pressing reason to switch over to Camtasia.

Well, here’s the game changer. TechSmith has just released its 1.1 update for Camtasia for Mac. Prior to this update, Camtasia could only record in full-screen mode. This is also the case with ScreenFlow. Mac users who take advantage of Expose found this fine and worked around it. But if you wanted to record only one specific portion of your screen, you were out of luck or you could use TechSmith’s limited freeware, Jing. Now, with the 1.1 update, TechSmith has included region capture. For those that do not get the difference here, when you have to record full screen, then zoom and crop, aside from the additional steps you must perform, there are subtle differences in pixel clarity. It’s like being forced to take a picture of a crowd and zoom in to one person when you only wanted to take a picture of the one person anyway.

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There is always something new, isn’t there? There is always a new toy, new app, something new to learn. The intent is that if you use all of these apps, you will be uber-productive, be ahead of the curve, on the cutting edge of tech and be raking in tons of dough. OK, so I may have been slightly tongue-in-cheek. But, two of the latest bits of tech that some have been buzzing about (awful pun) are the iPad and Google Buzz.

Now, Google Buzz, if you have not checked your gmail account recently, is a stripped down version of the GoogleWave that many have been patiently awaiting. This looks to be a competitor to Twitter. However, so far, although I’m sure that one can use anything productively if they try, I just have not gotten the Buzz as yet. The drawback for some is that you have to have a gmail account and the people you “buzz” and follow must also have a gmail account. Now, how is that different from Twitter, you say? On a basic level, it’s not…really. The winning assets for me currently are usability and availability. Many more folks are on Twitter it seems and it has become a social networking bear. Although, you can do the same things with Buzz, at the end of the day, on a business level, it becomes about reach. Right now, Twitter has the REACH that Buzz does not. Of course, humans are fickle and that could change at any minute.

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