Book Review: Rapid Media Development for Trainers: Creating Videos, Podcasts, and Presentations on a Budget

If you are an instructional technologist, you should have Rapid Media Development for Trainers: Creating Videos, Podcasts, and Presentations on a Budget as part of your reference set. Jonathan Halls packs 25-plus years of experience into this book. I first learned about Halls when I saw him present at an Association for Talent Development conference. I had also previously read his book Rapid Video Development for Trainers: How to Create Learning Videos Fast and Affordably. In Rapid Media Development for Trainers, he shared his processes for creating more than video. He also addressed audio files and imagery.

Rapid Media Development for Trainers is 193 pages long and spread over 17 chapters. In the first few chapters, Hall stresses the importance of media to training and education. He also addressed how the brain uses media to make sense of an objective. What he shares dovetails neatly into Richard Mayer’s Multimedia Learning and Universal Design for Learning.

The rest of the chapters focused on developing different media: audio, video, graphics, and screen text. Halls emphasized three specific stages to the process for each media type:

• Plan
• Create
• Edit

As Halls focused on each media type, he explained the situations in which the media could best be used. Again, he tied each media type to universal principles for its use.

Halls went into detail on how one would plan to create each media type. He outlined a process for planning, creating and editing content. He also included an overall workflow to help develop content as quick and easy as possible.

For each media type, Halls shared recommendations for developing a toolkit. Leveraging his experience, he explained the choices he made.

With Rapid Media Development for Trainers, you are getting a coach at your side. If you follow Halls’ recommendations, you will immediately improve your processes and the quality of the product you create. I will be keeping the book close to me as I tweak my processes. Even though I have quite a bit of experience creating these different media types, I learned a lot of new things.

Additional Reading

• #ATD2018: 9 Types of Video to Enhance Learning in Your Organization
• #ATD2018: 7 Easy-Peasy Rules for Creating Slides That Make Sense
• #ATD2018: How to Avoid the Top 10 Mistakes in Instructional Videos
• Book Review: Podcast Launch: A complete guide to launching your Podcast with 15 Video Tutorials!
• Book Review: Content Rules: How to Create Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, Ebooks, Webinars (and More) That Engage Customers and Ignite Your Business
• #ATD2015 Session: How to Make Video for Learning That’s Fabulous, Fast, and Affordable
• Optimizing Your Videos and Screencasts for YouTube

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