Expanding Your Technogical Vocabulary…One Video at a Time.
There is no doubt that technology has its own language. Talk to anyone that works around computers and websites all day (like me on some days) and you may quickly feel lost and confused. Examples of words that come up might include, but definitely aren’t limited to: web 2.0, blog, wiki, RSS, browser, podcast, etc. You might have heard these words, and knew they had to do with technology, but that’s where your knowledge ended. If you’re nodding your head right now I have the resource for you…It’s called Plain English.
I’ve run across their videos on YouTube a fair amount of times and have used it in many trainings as well. All the authors have done is use a video camera, some really simple production work, and some paper and markers to help explain all these new words in “Plain English.” All of the videos are housed on their site, which is called Commoncraft. They say it best when they describe what they do, “We make complex ideas easy to understand using short and simple videos.”
Here’s an example of what really helped set the stage at a podcast training I facilitated at the beginning of this school year:
So check these videos out. Then next time your friends start throwing around those newfangled techie words and ideas you can actually join in the conversation instead of trying to quickly change the subject. And please don’t try to tell me you haven’t ever done that!
