The audio portion of an online learning program is often overlooked, or left to the last moment. Audio narration done well can be a focal point of an online course, improving communication and understanding, or it can detract, simply repeating content and distracting the audience from more important facts. It can even be a key element in making courseware more accessible and meeting Americans with Disabilities Act (Section 508) standards. Many people settle for doing the voice over themselves, but this isn’t advisable, it’s simply difficult to accomplish this on your own without any experience. Our experienced voice narrators offer professional quality, inexpensive recording that can be integrated into your own courses, or be part of ones that Pinnacle develops.
Podcasts: Podcasting can be extremely effective and cost efficient when used as part of a mobile learning (m-learning) strategy and are an example of Rapid e-learning where the medium is used to disseminate information faster and more easily. Content can be created fast and without much effort and learners can use it in idle times which saves time and money for them and the organizations. Podcasting is often used for sales enablement by making employees knowledgeable on the companies products, processes and initiatives.
The 6 Step Podcasting Process:
Pinnacle follows best practices for creating Podcasts, a process that shares much with and should be integrated with a larger, blended learning strategy. The following steps summarize our approach:
Assess- Identify the Knowledge, Skills and Abilities that are supported by a rapid, mobile, auditory eLearning strategy.
Design- Create an outline of the information that will be conveyed. Divide material into discrete content objects.
Record- Initial recording is done in an uncompressed format for best quality before compressing to an online format.
Edit and mix- This key step eliminates distractors such as unnatural pauses, breathing, or volume fluctuations.
Tag- For any piece of content to be found online, it needs to be tagged with descriptors that tell users what it is.
Upload- Consider whether the podcast will be delivered through an LMS and any tracking requirements.