Dick, Your recentemail regarding content for the ARRL Lifelong Learning program stirred myinterest. Thanks for calling some ofthese issues to our attention. First, as tocontent, it was good to see Ms. Jairam’s comments from an educational perspective. She mentioned “structure and curriculum, an ability to add learningexercises, skill assessments, etc.” as things that a good educational sitewould offer that You Tube would not. Shehas far more experience in that area than I do, but I agree wholeheartedly withher. As for video, well, that is my area of expertise. I spent years producing and directing news,documentaries, commercials, public service announcements, and even corporatevideos, before capping my career with 25 years supervising the production ofcommercials for the world’s biggest advertiser, Procter & Gamble. I think I know video and how it communicates. So I was intrigued with your offering of all those YouTubeproducers. I spent some time looking ateach of their offerings. While I did notlook extensively at each producer’s work, I got a good enough look at each ofthem to be able to offer a bit of an assessment of their quality, bothtechnically, and from a content standpoint. Interestingly, I found that your list, intentionally or not,reflected my assessment of the quality of the producers from top tobottom. I was enthused about DaveCasler, KE0OG. He is a good host, hisvideos are technically well-produced, and he is well-organized in what he saysand interesting in how he does it. As wego further down the list, quality deteriorates, in my opinion. Also, I would note that at least two of thesites listed are more “talk” sites, discussing issues, attitudes, and manyother things relevant to ham radio, but not “instructional” as most of us wouldunderstand that term. Many of the othersites offer poor quality, either in content, quality, or especially in“likeability.” And of note, at least oneof the sites is on such a high technical plane that on Howard’s “Spectrum ofHams” (February QST), it would be at the far end of the quadrant of“technologists.” Not bad, but not ofwidespread interest. How am I assessing these videos? I made a list of criteria, with four majorpoints, and some explanations about each. Content o Organization of ideas § Concise, not rambling § An objective for the video, and some keytake-aways for the viewer o Technical correctness of subject matter Quality o Video (good quality technically, steady shots, good lighting, etc.) o Audio (close-miked, not noisy or echo-y, no distracting background noises, cleardiction, etc.) Editing o Easy to follow o Demonstrations that are clear visually,with close-ups where necessary, and appropriately placed to follow the audiothat describes them. o Not allowing any distractionsencountered during shooting to intrude on the program Likeability o Visual Interest--meaning, for instance,appropriate cuts and close-ups, never staying too long on either the host or ona particular graphic or piece of equipment o Engaging host o Music and titles where appropriate o Appropriate length for the subjectmatter At this point, I’m not offering a detailed evaluation of eachsite. I’m not sure how helpful it wouldbe, or whether or not it would be worth the hours and hours of viewing that itwould take me. I would hope that wecould interest the staff in taking a look at a few of these, in particular ifDave Casel is interested in working with ARRL. YouTube is useful, but one has to be wary of the content andthe producers. Some “how to…” videos arejust the thing for repairing that obscure piece of equipment, and others canmislead. Within ham radio, just thesampling of what you listed, let alone the hundreds of thousands of other videos,can be anything from really good to frighteningly awful. ARRL has a lot of excellent content. We need to find ways to pull it intoscreen-friendly applications, and we will need a lot of help doing that. So let the dialog continue. Tom W8WTD On Tuesday, February 5, 2019, 1:28:31 PM EST, Richard J. Norton <richardjnorton@gmail.com> wrote: At the recent Quartzfest ARRL Forum, I mentioned that the Board had approved a contract to build the framework for a "Lifelong Learning" web-site that is intended to educate newcomers to Amateur Radio and eventually result in a higher percentage of newly licensed hams becoming and continuing to be ARRL members. I commented that, at present, content for the site had not been specifically identified or produced. The first audience member responded positively, stating that that was a desirable step for the League to undertake. The second respondent sarcastically asked if I was aware of a site called YouTube. The third was more specific. He introduced himself as Dave Casler, KE0OG. He has more than 400 free ham radio videos on his YouTube site, with over 47,000 subscribers. I found his site at https://www.youtube.com/user/davecasler . Casler didn't seem impressed with the creation of a new ham radio framework for a web-site with no content, and seemed somewhat miffed that no attention was paid to existing web-sites and material that appeared to match ARRL's future goals. Casler even expressed possible interest in having his material accessed through the League. He also added that K7AGE, who was also at Quartzfest, also has a web-site with videos. I found that K7AGE's site has over 31,000 subscribers. K7AGE's site, https://www.youtube.com/user/K7AGE?feature=mhee , then lists another 10 ham radio related web-sites. W2AEW - 101,000 subscribersSteve WG0AT - 5,000 subscribersHamRadioNow - 11,000 subscribersKN4AQ - 1,700 subscribersEEVblog - 621,000 subscribers HamRadioConcepts - 43,000 subscribers Jim W6LG - 17,000 subscribersKevin Loughlin - 15,000 subscribersDave Tadlock - 20,000 subscribers DX Commander - 9,000 subscribers I would have hoped that all these 12 and any other competitive resources would have been researched, their capabilities and user statistics summarized, and potential impact on the proposed new web-site made clear, before we proceeded with funding. Apparently I was the only Board member with this view. Note that there are many other non-video ham-radio related web-sites with text and charts. I still don't understand how the League expects viewers to pay for most content, given the free competition. I still remember the sample initial page shown at the Thursday night presentation where there was a box at the top labeled something like "Free Trial." Possibly someone here can explain the rationale. Even at this stage, I still think it would be valuable for the staff to put together a compilation of competitive resources, and any planned approach to their presence. 73, Dick Norton, N6AA_______________________________________________ arrl-odv mailing list arrl-odv@reflector.arrl.org https://reflector.arrl.org/mailman/listinfo/arrl-odv