Training videos for new calendar?

I love the transition FAQs and help resources available for the new calendar.

However, I'm not sure everyone is going to read the help information initially. Furthermore the new calendar has some nuance that can take some time to digest (e.g. difference between a resource and a location, rights and roles, how to resolve conflicts, how to "share" ward calendars to other wards, even how to get syncing and importing working too, etc.).

I was starting to wonder if perhaps some video based training would help those people that are visual learners. (Kind of like the clerk training videos).

Has anyone produced some video training (screencasting essentially) to help members in their ward or stake? I was thinking about doing this since there still seems to be some confusion/questions in our stake.

But I wasn't sure if that would be a good use of my time. Maybe it would be better to just get a bunch of the clerks and building schedulers in the stake together and train them in person? Once the clerks and building schedulers know, then they can answer members' questions?

Maybe we just keep referring people to the help information, and then answer any clarifying questions that people have? (I like this one the best because it first directs people to the official help pages, and then if they have more questions to "phone a friend").

How have other people managed transitioning a stake from using the old calendar to the new?

Our approach has been to train the individual members of ward council, and then they roll out to their quorums/auxiliaries.

I have also been looking for something. I'm planning a Ward activity night to introduce all of the new tools on the lds.org site. I'm holding off until early March, though, so that the latest updates to the calendar will be in place and I won't confuse too many people. I would love some good training videos.

I'm planning to create a lot of training videos for the calendar -- something like what you find on lynda.com. However, given that the interface for the calendar is changing significantly in Q1 of this year (prob. Feb or March), I thought it would be cost effective to hold off on the videos until then. It's probably not ideal, since people need training when apps are released, not 3 months afterwards, but that's the current plan. I've also run into the problem of how not to show real member data. Translation will also be problematic. At any rate, in the meantime, if you need to create some quick videos for your ward, Jing is a free video capture tool that anyone can use well.

RBeatse wrote:I have also been looking for something. I'm planning a Ward activity night to introduce all of the new tools on the lds.org site. I'm holding off until early March, though, so that the latest updates to the calendar will be in place and I won't confuse too many people. I would love some good training videos.

I just stepped out of a meeting discussing this very thing. I'm going to be creating a handout showcasing the new technologies on lds.org and elsewhere that wards can use for 5th sunday lessons and such. If you have wifi, the best option is a real-time tour of the sites. But for people who don't, a handout may have to suffice. Sorry that nothing is created. tech.lds.org/ldshelp is supposed to be the site for training materials, so they'll eventually land there.

A similar discussion happened here, briefly... https://tech.lds.org/forum/showthread.p ... lendar-etc

In anticipation of this month's 5th Sunday, I spent a few hours this week putting together a PowerPoint presentation with an overview of the new LDS.org site. In effect, it's going to be a guided tour, highlighting certain things and encouraging people to explore everything else on their own. It's mostly just screen captures with animated arrows to highlight the things I'll be talking about. Our Internet connection in the building is quirky so I felt a PowerPoint approach was much better than trying to go online "live" on that day.

Because the presentation is intended for members of my own ward, I didn't bother to cover up the real names of ward members when, for example, I show them the Ward Directory or the Maps sections of the site. And, unlike many boring PowerPoint presentations I've seen, I did NOT put a bunch of text on the screen which I would be reading to the viewers (who are perfectly capable of reading the same text). The entire "script" will be whatever I say about the screen captures I've chosen to show them.

So, bottom line: I'm pretty happy with what I've chosen to show people but it's not generic enough to share elsewhere.

johnsonth wrote:I just stepped out of a meeting discussing this very thing. I'm going to be creating a handout showcasing the new technologies on lds.org and elsewhere that wards can use ...

I will be very interested in using the handouts once they are created. Will be following this closely.

By the way johnonth, I reviewed the updates to the "Viewing Calendars" help page. They were very helpful, but raised a few additional questions. When I have some time I will list them out. I see that the Feb/March major redesign appears to have moved to June.

Keep up the great work.

johnsonth wrote:I'm going to be creating a handout ... that wards can use for 5th sunday lessons and such. <snip>. Sorry that nothing is created. tech.lds.org/ldshelp is supposed to be the site for training materials, so they'll eventually land there.

Thank you all for your comments here and letting me know how other people are training and getting the information out.

And thank you johnsonth for having this on your radar (although I could see the benefit of waiting until after the updates to the calendar to produce something. At the time of posting this it seems June 2011 is the new date for the updates).

And no need to apologize, the information already available on http://tech.lds.org/ldshelp for the calendar is VERY, VERY, GOOD! It just takes a long time to read and understand since many of the concepts are new.

For now I'll keep encouraging people to read the available help and ask questions when they don't understand something. Usually the answers to people's questions are in the help files... it just might take a little while to find them

Thanks again!

I have been asked by our Bishop to do a Ward "activity" where I go over the new tools and websites and such. I have titled my presentation "On The Web, But Not Of The Web---A Guide to the LDS Superhighway". I will be using the power point files shown here. You will notice that it says the presentation is being done by Bro. Seymour D. Webb. That is just meant to be funny (get it? "See More of the Web") Anyway, I plan to use this and a slightly modified version of the "How to sign in" document previously attached in this thread another member. As you can see, I will be using this in conjunction with an actual connection to see the sites. I also will be demoing a few of the I-Phone/Android apps that are available.

Glad to see that you're giving a lesson on this topic. If you can somehow get Internet access to demo the sites, even better.

Nice presentation.... Thanks

I agree that it would be much easer for the members to be personally trained by someone that understood the new calendar. However, it will be very slow progress. But I fell any other method is going to be extravagant duplication of effort and wasted time when it seems that perhaps the church could have a short and generic PowerPoint or a video presentation. However I am excited the members of the wards and stake to begin using this wonderful tool.
If someone wanted to share their PowerPoint slides, that could be nice and reduce duplication of effort.
The bottom line is that it is up to us administrators to begin, at the very least, a quite and methodical campaign training others how to use this and promote the use of the calendar.
I am trying out Camtasia Studio, using the free 30 day trial they offer. ( http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia ) It can create videos using a screen casting method or screen capturing . It allows you to edit the project after you record it.

I reiterate that it would be better to be trained personally by someone that knows, but as we look for other solutions to assist us the trainning of others, it would be nice if the church could produce some kind of generic video or presentation that members could learn from. It is not rocket science, but I find that some members are frigthened and confused and simply will not use it.
Thanks,

Geoffrey Gentry

Thanks for sharing! Hope it's OK if I made some modifications for an overview presentation to my stake. Should I give credit to someone other than "Brother Webb"?

preston.baxter wrote:Thanks for sharing! Hope it's OK if I made some modifications for an overview presentation to my stake. Should I give credit to someone other than "Brother Webb"?

Make any changes you would like. As far as credit, my name is Reed Beatse (Bates) from South Jordan, Utah but Brother Webb is fine also. Feel free to take the credit yourself also, you're the one that doing the presentation. Good Luck!!