Multimedia

Getting to use a range of multimedia in eLearning seems sometimes like the Holy Grail. Easy to describe, but difficult to do properly.

It's reasonably easy to add audio tracks, animations and suchlike. But there are real problems with video - what streaming technology to use. Not everyone wants the same solution and not every corporate firewall lets streamed video inbound.

A key issue in Ossidian's exploration of video technologies has been to make sure that everyone can get our content. But if you don't have fast broadband, then don't try to run video.

When you've experienced good video-based content, it is pretty hard to go back to plain old text.

Re-using SCOs

We have recently completed the pre-audio work on our latest module ('SS7 Fundamentals') - which is a technical module on telecom signaling. This was one of the first times we have tried re-using graphics, text and audio from our new content repository.

Up till now we built each new module from scratch. Obviously that took lots of work - but we could customize the content around the subject-matter. Now, having built nearly 500 tutorials, we have a great collection of artwork and re-useable text. We also have a huge repository of test questions that can be randomized for assessment purposes.

So what's the advantage of this new approach ? Well the first thing is we built our latest module in 50% of the time (and probably 25% of the cost). Secondly, we know the existing materials have been pre-tested and peer-reviewed - so that means the Q/A effort is much less. Thirdly, we now have visibility into our entire content repository as a library of re-usable SCOs - and that means we can roll our new (or custom) modules quite easily.

Anyone else got experience of this approach to technical eLearning ?