Danegeld

Updates: read Videos as knowledge products for another video-sceptic take (20 May). In defence of video, I’d Rather be Writing makes the point that the more familiar you are with something, the less instruction you need (19 August).

Two tweets popped up in my stream this week on the topic of preferring reading to watching a video or listening to a podcast. Hurrah! I thought it was just me. The information to value ratio for both seems too low.

The tweets:

The Joy of Text (or “Is it just me who hates webinars and video”) – I like to think I keep up with the times. @ianbrodie, linking to his blog post The Joy of Text (or “Is it just me who hates webinars and video”)

Plus:

Arggh. Can’t take having to watch 10-minute video interviews with content that’d take me 1-2 minutes to read in text form. @peterkretzman, RTd in the run up to this week’s #tcchat on the use of video in documentation.

Both discussions continued over the next couple of days. One response was that information should be offered in a range of formats, to compensate for varying learning styles. I tend to feel this is bending over backwards – in the real world this just may not be feasible. But is it worthwhile offering a talking head video, just because it’s the latest thing?

Another response is that video can offer something over text – showing rather than telling. For example, the #tcchat discussion (see the transcript) highlighted how videos might be appropriate for visual inspection, detail or tasks not otherwise apparent or easily described, such as medical device industry can use vids to train staff how to clean devices. The chat went on to discuss issues around subtitling/captioning, the need to have a transcript, tables of contents within vids…all rather a long way from an organisation shoving up a vid, and calling for resources and skills beyond the reach of many. Is an amateurish vid actually damaging, affecting a website and hence an organisation’s credibilty?

With a lot of podcasts, it shows why professional broadcasters are just that – many sound like they are reading from a script or blokey banter that is a waste of time.

Another issue is the myth of learning styles. Having worked in legal education for several years I was a bit of a learning styles disciple, but a recent Ignite slidecast – oh the irony! – I came across rather pulled the rug out from under me on that one and I’ve kinda gone back to a version of Ranganathan’s a book for every reader – a format for every type of info. See Wikipedia on learning styles entry for more on this. In sum, it appears that catering for differing learning styes generally doesn’t improve learning outcomes or the retention of information.

This may all be part of the change in reading habits, another topic I want to write on. Ian states that statistics show that a lot of people prefer video and audio, and some search on YouTube rather than Google – oh the horror!