On-line “just in time” education
About 18 months ago, while contemplating a career “side step”, I proposed some ideas for “just in time education”. The premise is that, today, most people don’t have the time for formal all-day and multi-day training models and often need “just enough” to get started. Also, there is a lot of need for “point specific” education - when you are in the middle of a task and need to know how to do a specific part of the task that you have never done before.
The idea is not new and I don’t take credit for it. One example to demonstrated the value was a simple “setup your home wireless security” video. It was not more than 3 minutes long. Another example was “building a Google Maps application”. Again, the instruction was under 10 minutes.
The idea never took off at my company. But, it does seem to have a live on the internet. LessonBites has come up with an interesting business model for the idea …
LessonBites provides a marketplace for instructors to sell their lessons using internet-based video. LessonBites provides lessons in bite sizes (like individual tracks of a CD) so you can learn what you want. The price of each video is 99 cents.
The product model is the same as “just in time education”. What is interesting is the business model. At 99c a lesson, the price might be right for personal training.
I’m not keen on their solution to piracy but I’m sure they felt they needed to do something.The quality of some videos is not what I would expect and there appears to be some bandwidth issues. The value wil only come from volume of lessons.
Of course, YouTube and other sites may have made this business model moot. Of course, “content” is still the big issue. There is more “how to” videos for bad things then generally useful things <uh oh>. If you are looking for “how to” videos, here is a “top 10 list” of places to start.
June 13th, 2008 at 12:07
This list is very good but it’s missing some of the newest how to sites. My favorite is http://www.monkeysee.com which has tons and tons of professional how to videos.