Effective Video Training for Education

I just recently had a discussion with a friend about what methods of presentation work well for me as a learner. This is a topic that I would love to examine further. For me, I really enjoy learning from training videos. Training videos are spread all throughout the Internet from both professional content providers as well as novices. For a quick, one-off type of tutorial, even a novice video can suffice; however, the most effective online training videos I have every watched come from www.Lynda.com.

In the discussion I had with my friend, I mentioned how Lynda provides thorough software and computer training in a very systematic manner. The learner can go from complete rookie to mastery by watching every video in a course. For example, if you want to learn how to use Adobe Photoshop, you can access the Photoshop training that best fits your level of experience with Photoshop from beginner to expert. The “Photoshop CS5 Essential Training” course alone is over 11 hours of step by step video training. That might sound like a lot, but when the training is interesting (and it helps when it’s in an area you enjoy), 11 hours goes by fast.

Learning with video works for me. I can watch at my pace, rewind if I miss something or need to watch something again, and I can use it as a reference later when I actually have a project that uses the specific skills and/or tasks I learned. What I wonder though is how much of higher education can follow this model. When thorough training videos are created, can most subject areas stand to benefit? I understand that software and computer skills can be easily taught in a video medium, but what about counseling, statistics, nursing, history, biology?

I think these questions are difficult to answer for several reasons. I think that all of these subject areas and more can use videos to train students. But I also believe there is a point where certain skills cannot be trained merely through video. In other words, eventually, a nursing student must get a real syringe and be able to take a blood sample! Another issue with saying videos are a great solution for all of education is quality. There are so many educational videos out there (even at multi-million-dollar universities) that are absolutely awful; however, just because awful videos are not effective, does not mean we should abandon the use of videos; it just means we need to invest what it takes to create stellar, effective videos!

Obviously training videos existed before the boom of the Internet, but the manner in which a user can engage with the videos and quickly access and navigate videos has changed. I think that I am much more likely to watch and reference Lynda.com videos since they are in small chunks on my computer than if I had countless DVDs to navigate. It’s just different.

So what do you think? Are videos underutilized in education? Do you think video training can and should be the primary form of training for courses in counseling, statistics, nursing, history, biology, and others? Are video trainings effective for you like they are for me?