by VPSean » Sat Feb 24, 2007 6:53 pm
Along with the blessings and curses of fantastic programs such as MediaMonkey that I mentioned in my last post is the fact that most users hardly even know the full capacity of the various programs they have. The average user generally needs to do one thing at any given moment in time and nothing else. For example, most users would probably get media monkey, add the music they have on their hard drive to the database, and then leave it alone!! They won't have any need to use all the other great features of the program until randomly, they realize they need to use one of the tools such as tagging. The only problem is that they don't know where to start, even though it might be a VERY simple thing to do. Being an arranger of music, I've run into this problem quite a bit using the notation software program finale. It could take me several hours to find one small thing I need to use from it, though it could be just 3 clicks a way that I'm unaware of.
What I've seen in the past (though I don't remember where) is a short video tutorial on how to do various things. In media monkey, the way I envision it would be that the creators of it would record a video on the computer of them doing something, such as "tagging," -- It could be titled "How to tag your music." On top of the video there would be recorded audio of the creator explaining what he's doing; it could even have some flash text written on part of the screen to help explain the steps that he's using. As the very end of the tutorial that could really be less then a minute, it could quickly review what just happened:
"In summary, to tag your music you want to go about the following steps:
1. Go to the location of your music.
2. Right click the file.
3. Write in your tags.
4. Click tag"
(Of course with a little more description..that was just a quick example of the idea).
Even better than just short video tutorials could be a series of videos that really "teach" the user to master the program. The tutorials would start from the very basics of using the program, and could even give practice exercises to commit what was taught to memory. The first law of learning after all is repetition. Media Monkey could have some short sample mp3's on it's site to download, and could use those as the "practice" mp3's.
"Practice tagging the Media Monkey MP3's: Use the tutorial on tagging, adding album art, etc. to master the different ways to tag an album. As shown in the tutorials there are a few different ways to do similar tasks, and depending on what you're trying to accomplish, one method might be better than the other. Once you completed one method for tagging; go ahead and untag (use the "Deleting Tags" tutorial) the files, and do it again in the other way..."
Just thought I'd throw that out there!! It'd take some planning and organizing from the creators, but I don't think it would be anything to hard or that would take to much time. Write a list of all the different things Media Monkey can do, and then set out to get a program that will record what you're doing on the company. Write out the "audio" that you want to speak on it to explain what you're doing, and do it! Have a couple of us review the tutorials before adding it to the program, and you're set!!
If the creators like this idea please let me know. I'll be curious to know what your thoughts are.
--Sean
Along with the blessings and curses of fantastic programs such as MediaMonkey that I mentioned in my last post is the fact that most users hardly even know the full capacity of the various programs they have. The average user generally needs to do one thing at any given moment in time and nothing else. For example, most users would probably get media monkey, add the music they have on their hard drive to the database, and then leave it alone!! They won't have any need to use all the other great features of the program until randomly, they realize they need to use one of the tools such as tagging. The only problem is that they don't know where to start, even though it might be a VERY simple thing to do. Being an arranger of music, I've run into this problem quite a bit using the notation software program finale. It could take me several hours to find one small thing I need to use from it, though it could be just 3 clicks a way that I'm unaware of.
What I've seen in the past (though I don't remember where) is a short video tutorial on how to do various things. In media monkey, the way I envision it would be that the creators of it would record a video on the computer of them doing something, such as "tagging," -- It could be titled "How to tag your music." On top of the video there would be recorded audio of the creator explaining what he's doing; it could even have some flash text written on part of the screen to help explain the steps that he's using. As the very end of the tutorial that could really be less then a minute, it could quickly review what just happened:
"In summary, to tag your music you want to go about the following steps:
1. Go to the location of your music.
2. Right click the file.
3. Write in your tags.
4. Click tag"
(Of course with a little more description..that was just a quick example of the idea).
Even better than just short video tutorials could be a series of videos that really "teach" the user to master the program. The tutorials would start from the very basics of using the program, and could even give practice exercises to commit what was taught to memory. The first law of learning after all is repetition. Media Monkey could have some short sample mp3's on it's site to download, and could use those as the "practice" mp3's.
"Practice tagging the Media Monkey MP3's: Use the tutorial on tagging, adding album art, etc. to master the different ways to tag an album. As shown in the tutorials there are a few different ways to do similar tasks, and depending on what you're trying to accomplish, one method might be better than the other. Once you completed one method for tagging; go ahead and untag (use the "Deleting Tags" tutorial) the files, and do it again in the other way..."
Just thought I'd throw that out there!! It'd take some planning and organizing from the creators, but I don't think it would be anything to hard or that would take to much time. Write a list of all the different things Media Monkey can do, and then set out to get a program that will record what you're doing on the company. Write out the "audio" that you want to speak on it to explain what you're doing, and do it! Have a couple of us review the tutorials before adding it to the program, and you're set!!
If the creators like this idea please let me know. I'll be curious to know what your thoughts are.
--Sean