VISUAL-MEDIA TRAINING
After an unexpected three week absence, I’m happy to be back posting again. And, I’d like to start with a bit of history.
To understand the power of visual-based e-Learning, it is instructive to look at the visual learning technologies that preceded it.
The first generic industrial training video course was produced by NUS Corporation (Rockville, Maryland) in 1973. It was produced for the nuclear power industry and was in black and white, mastered on a two inch reel-to-reel video recorder. Two years later the first color generic video course was released for the same market. And in 1982, the first example of fully interactive visual-media training (interactive laser videodisc — IVD) was created by ITC specifically for industrial skills training and the wider process/manufacturing markets. I was fortunate to be in “the right place at the right time” and shot, directed and produced all three.
The opportunity for increased learning and retention for those 40% of our workforce who do not read above a 4th grade level had become a reality in less than a decade!
Why so much early emphasis on industrial skills training?
Because the full power of visual-media instruction reaches out effectively to all individuals who need to acquire the skills so necessary to mechanical maintenance, electrical maintenance, instrumentation, operations and good safety practice.
This fit has proven ideal for a partnership between knowledgeably-designed, video-based instruction and both the skills and work practices necessary to America’s critically important blue collar workforce.
Manufacturing has always been an essential strength of any national economy. According to a July, 2009 edition of the New York Times, “No other sector contributes more to the nation’s overall economy, economists say. And, as manufacturing weakens, the country becomes more and more dependent on imports of merchandise, computers, machinery and the like — running up a trade deficit that in time could undermine the dollar and the nation’s capacity to sustain so many imports.”
Instructionally sound, visual-media training can help revitalize American manufacturing. Visual-media is uniquely qualified because — more than any other investment — visual-based media can significantly improve productivity and efficiency while allowing American manufacturing to maintain a premiere position in the international marketplace.
The manufacturing and process industries could make few wiser investments than to invest their training dollars in visual-based learning media. Today, visual-based e-Learning is that best answer.
Instructionally sound visual-media training works better than any alternate choice because learner retention rates grow, productivity increases, and lost-time accidents shrink.
More on Wednesday – – –
–— Bill Walton, co-Founder, ITC Learning
June 12, 2017
www.itclearning.com/blog/ (Mondays & Wednesdays)
“THE WORLD RELIES ON THE HANDS OF ITS MEN AND WOMEN”