This week’s e-learning challenge is all about smartphone video training. In a world where smartphones are ever-present, it seems like a really cost-effective solution to record your own training videos to meet basic training needs. Heck. I still consult YouTube for basic procedural information – have you ever had to auger your toilet? It took 29 years for me to get there, and when I did, I swiftly consulted a video tutorial.
The Concept
This challenge encouraged participants to use their smartphones to record, edit, and publish a training video. Personally, I find video training basic for procedural demonstrations, so I chose to show you the Dos and Don’ts of something I feel most folks can relate to – inserting a duvet into a duvet cover. For YEARS I hated this chore; the Internet wasn’t around when I first started dealing with duvet covers, and I always thought I had to physically insert myself into the cover to complete the task. The end result is cranky and sweaty and no fun – maybe this was my mother’s way of paying me back for the teenage years I made her deal with? Hmmm…
In any event, there is a right and wrong way of putting a duvet inside of a duvet cover, and I show you both ways!
The Method
I set my iPhone up to record video, and had my husband record the two videos, balancing the iPhone on the baby gate to our room (anyone with a herding dog and cats will understand), for stability, while I demonstrated both approaches.
Once recorded, I sought out my iMovie app…only to realize I had removed it from my computer in favour of Camtasia. Here I had to do a little bit of challenge cheating, using Camtasia instead of my smartphone app to edit and publish the video. Now, had I not removed iMovie, I would have edited in that – but hey. It’s the thought that counts!
I added in some annotations, steps, removed the original audio, and added some background music (in retrospect, there’s a song called Duvet I used to really enjoy…maybe that would have been more appropriate? Ah well!). Once completed, I published and uploaded to Vimeo.
The Result
Wow, Ashley! I think this’ll be the first time I’ve felt more drawn into the subject matter of a challenge entry rather than its methods. (And I appreciated your methods, of course! Lovely right-versus-wrong approach, nice video and music.)
First, the most entertaining part for me, besides you most alarmingly and completely being swallowed up by your own duvet cover, was the reaction of your cat. S/he acted as though this was an everyday event that was all kind of a yawn. That made it seem even more alarming, somehow.
Second, my first summer job in Germany was working at a Gasthaus where I was trained to do things like change duvet covers right off the bat. Granted, my trainer was certifiably insane, but her methods with duvet covers seemed to work. At this hotel they made sure that their freshly-laundered duvet covers were inside-out when they got to the rooms. So you’d stick your hands into the far corners of the duvet cover (while standing up), then grab the two corresponding corners of the duvet and sort of shimmy the cover down over it. A bit like your second method, but in a standing position and with fewer cats.
So I thoroughly enjoyed your entry, Ashley. It’s not often I get to discuss methods for applying duvet covers. Thank you – and well done!
HAHA – I (clearly) haven’t tried your method, but I will be trying it next time I make the bed! I’m pretty keen, but it’s far too warm here today for me to subject myself to anymore labour than necessary 😛 Immediately after we finished shooting the video, both cats jumped up and resumed their sleep-posts. Jerks.
Milo is blind, so anything we do tends to seem much like a yawn to him 😛
Awww…poor Milo! Even if our cat couldn’t see I’d think he’d be really concerned by everything that was going on, but maybe your guys are more mellow than ours.
I thought I’d mention I only had to endure duvet-cover duty for a couple of days before I was mercifully rescued from my insane trainer and worked the rest of the summer in the kitchen where I got tortured by a wider variety of people. Amazing I remembered that short bit of duvet cover training all these years. (It was training that stuck!)
Briliant, I concur with Jackie. Very emersive video. Like Jackie I’ve never seen both ways to insert the duvet. Without any training I figured that reversing the cover, grabbing the points and shaking like a madman to finish the job 🙂
Again! love your entry!
Wait! Cover? You’re supposed to remove the duvet from the cover? I really like seeing the right and wrong ways. Perfect use of video!
Thanks, Ashley!