Video and Community

One potentially useful video application would be to go out onto the street doing interviewing/surveying passer-bys and then commenting on useful language points from their responses. There would be a lot of value in hearing "natural language" (varying accents, expressions, constructions and vocabulary) that people use. Commentary could have characters/graphics, as is done in the WTS & Video Review, to reinforce key concepts. The commentators/hosts (ie. Jenny/John) would not need to be a visual part of the video.

Except for WTS, I usually don't get too much from the videos.  I almost missed the latest, since new stuff like this doesn't show up in my feed by default.

Of course, any new video should at least be eligible for this phony contest: good video contest

oh...I miss aric...if you could bring pete/Jp (btw JP I miss your apearence at qing wen, your great...) and Jenny to do that kinda vid, boom it would skyrocket and be more than much awaited... ^_^

but If that´s not possible you could just make a video section/ a video group and let those who are into video makeing have fun there (and if there are especially skilled guys/gals you can recruit them if you plan to go on with video lessons) . :-O

@frank:

我现在明白了! 也同意! John Pasden是非常好!

I'm also still very satisfied with the level of audio content available on this site. The video is just a nice extra thing...whether or not its available is not a big deal to me.

@ RJ: did you stumble upon a a strange portal lately?? are you being "Calkins Malkovich"??

哈哈哈哈哈哈哈！！

Can What's the Story continue in audio form? It would work for me, with a transcript and key words. There is something to be said about learning a language through a story.

Audio is more important then video.  I use ChinesePod on the train, in the car, or whenever I can. It is hard to watch video in these situations. Language is all about sounds.  ChinesePod is excellent the way it is. 

The commentaries are good. Aric made them work. The skill here is in the voice-over.

Im a little ashamed to admit I kind of liked the cantonese video shown above :-). it was a bit inefficient in terms of language learning but fun; albeit it left me feeling a bit depressed. There was a dark cynical depravity about the whole thing but it was somewhat entertaining. Maybe it was just the hot chicks. I dont recommend this for cpod but I am going to watch it again. :-) Cantonese is so cool but must be twice as hard to learn aaaaaaa?

What do you think Brent?

RJ, get out of my head (you know it's scary in there).  And as usual, I agree with you...no better place to learn Chinese than CPod, with or without video.

If you don't remember what the old Commentary style "lessons" were like, here is an example:

May be there is too much thought going in to the development of the video side of things. This Hair Salon one is great.. it's not just the learning of the words but also the commentary on the culture and life of people. The Vocab Tours are very different because there is not really anyone commenting on what is going on. It's just a video version of flash cards.

This video brings with it "context" and interest. If you just play the audio of this video, you can still learn.. and that is the big difference for me.

I see Mr calkins was also posting similar thougts as I typed. I agree with his comments as well.

John,

I can only speak for myself but I really dont care if there is any video right now. I like the site the way it was. Sure video is nice but but if a weekly thing is not in the cards right now, so what. Make it a periodic treat until something clicks. This way you keep your iron in the fire as it were, but not so much pressure. Im sure you will grow there one day. Other things are also important, like the grammar guide. I have recently decided to focus on grammar for one reason: If I cant put english thoughts into Chinese sentences, then I cant write or speak spontaneous Chinese. This is a major thing. Go grammar guide.

Then there are the little things that need fixing, like those damn "    characters that keep popping up in the post titles. What the hell is that? :-) It has been there since the last upgrade and I keep thinking, its a small thing, they will fix it. But they dont. I wont repeat all the other suggestions on things that need work. Overall I am pretty happy with cpod. Im not ready to walk if you dont thrill me with videos. I want to learn Chinese and this is a great place to do it. 

John,

Thanks for the detailed explanation.  All of your points are valid ones (not that you need approval from anyone;-).

Here's what I think about the whole video thing.  Scrap it completely!  I don't think it is needed.  Some people may say that video is necessary to meet current technology trends and needs.  Maybe for some, but I think it's obvious that CPod's model (before video) was close to flawless.  Why the big push for video?

Regarding promising video as premium content with the new model, I think it's perfectly acceptable to take that promise back.  Just explain to us (like you did above) that we gave it our best, but it's currently not feasible given the current situation (of whatever...the economy, CPod's resources and budget, etc.). 

In my eyes (and I think in many other users' eyes), changing to an "only Newbie podcasts are free" model was absolutely understandable, even without adding new premium content for paying subscribers.  In fact, I felt it was long overdue.  I think the important thing is to express to everyone that those new funds will go towards completing and fixing things in the current model (like the Grammar Guide, Vocabulary Manager, traditional support, website glitches, etc.).  There will always be people who get ticked because they can't get something for free, but people who are a bit more rational understand that to get a quality product you need to pay for it. 

Anyway, I'm just saying I don't think we need video, and that it'd be perfectly fine to scrap it entirely and continue your great efforts into the existing model, which has worked like a charm for more than 3 years.  Maybe down the road, when the economy is better, or when the other LanguagePods can fully stand on their own two feet, then you revisit the idea of video.

Just my rambling thoughts!

John,

Saw the new entries on the Grammar Guide.  Keep up the good work.

"A Day In The Life" type lessons are very useful from both an educational and cultural perspective. We can see such lessons in the audio podcasts such as The Hungry Traveller series as well as the Diary Series, which are both extremely good platforms (or launching pads) for delivery of spoken language.

I would think that a similar approach could be made to a video series. Arriving in China, Getting a Taxi, Finding your Hotel etc. I'm uncertain on the laws about ad-hoc filming in China though so it may just not be possible to film, for commercial purposes, in locations like that (without a bit of money changing hands of course).

Rather than concentrating solely on a linear, textbook approach to learning, the ChinesePOD approach has always been about the dialogue and then breaking down the dialogue and extrapolating the ideas and cultural references from the dialogue. And who's to say that a lesson must only be Video OR Audio?? Why can't it be both?

What about the old style "commentary" videos that were done years ago? I think these worked very well, and with a bit of extra editing and lesson planning could really be something extra special. An incorporation of the commentary style with the new Vocab Tour style was actually what I was expecting at the time of the original video lesson launch.

Sadly it has been more like watching Sesame Street than a true learning experience. You could have literally thousands of Vocab Tour episodes and all that we would really learn is a bunch of nouns and the odd verb here and there. What you really need is context and/or dialogue. Without context there is really not a lot of point to anything about learning.

Remember when you were learning Algebra? Where was the context? There was probably none for most people and surely that makes it much more difficult to learn, even though Algebra is actually quite a simple topic when it really comes down to it.

helenhelen,

Hmmm, that's an interesting idea... A focus not on "all writing," but on writing which needs attention for some reason or another.

Clearly, it makes a lot of sense to use a visual medium to treat written language.

Sorry for not getting back to you right away... the weekend came rather suddenly. :)

OK, I see some info is missing, so let me explain to you all the factors involved.

(1) When we switched over from an "all podcasts are free" model to an "only Newbie podcasts are free" model, we made a promise to our paying users that we would devote ourselves to a higher quality product for them. The video efforts were a large part of that.

It's true that video takes a lot of time and resources, and facing a global recession, we're not in a position to hire a whole new video team (or even one expensive professional), especially given that there's absolutely no guarantee that investments sunk into video will result in any kind of proportional return (money-wise or education-wise). As Frank mentioned, we've been making do with the talent we have, and it has gone well (with perhaps one recent exception).

So we have felt obligated to our loyal users to produce MORE in order to make good on our promise, and that "more" has been video.

(2) I stopped the Vocab Tour because there really are limits on what can be done well from a pedagogical perspective. It's confusing to have both nouns and verbs in the video, and it's also better to have a theme for the video. With that in mind, we thought of all kinds of possibilities for themes, but most are quite difficult to pull off well. There was even footage of two shoots that had to be abandoned because they yielded nothing usable. And we don't have time to waste.

In addition, we felt that "glorified flashcards" were cool, but our users deserved material more focused on spoken language.

What's the Story was an improvement on the Vocab Tour because it offered natural spoken language, full body language, and limitless topics. It had its own issues, however.

Very few of our employees are cofortable on video, and "thinking up stories to tell" and then being regularly recorded on video isn't part of their job descriptions.  The show was wearing thin for them, and it was hard to keep getting good material.

This isn't to say that neither show couldn't be continued at some point, but both needed a break.

(3) I agree that it makes a lot of sense to place resources on developing and improving existing features and issues.  More quality doesn't have to mean more content.  I actually spent most of Friday afternoon working on Grammar Guide entries because I agree with the views expressed by many of you (and especially Henning).

The Grammar Guide is still a good idea, and will be a great resource when it's done, but it does require regular additions over time. I'm working out a new schedule now to get those additions made.

Over the summer we went through a huge project of re-recording individual dialogue sentences, expansion sentences, and vocabulary (both English and Chinese) for all lessons 1-520 in order to create the necessary audio data to generate the audio review for those lessons. It was weeks and weeks of work, but we got it done. We're not afraid of a big job.

(4) Regarding community contributions to video...  We're not looking for community efforts to replace our own efforts. That would be rather lazy and irresponsible of us.  We're also not expecting professional footage.  But if community efforts could be combined with ChinesePod efforts, I think we might be able to produce something really cool.  If it doesn't have clear educational value, though, then it's probably not worth doing (or at least not worth as much resources and attention).  So that's why we're having this discussion.

We're taking a video break for the holidays, so it is a good time to have a larger discussion about video as well.

I have an idea. Basically following a similar format to a normal podcast, but working from the basis of a slice of everyday written Chinese instead of a dialogue. Stuff like roadsigns, shop signs, tickets, menus, those banner things with couplets on, the youren/meiren thing you get on toilets, whatever.

Shots of the writing within its context, the hosts interpreting it, with explanation about the individual characters and how they are used in the combinations seen. Possibly some nifty editing to highlight certain components as they are talked about, or create visual mnemonics.

Reasons I think this would be worth doing;

• In any language, reading 'functional' writing is a skill in itself. Words are used that aren't common in speech, you have to read around unexpected contractions, etc. This is something you don't always get much of an impression of from traditional study.
• Like the podcasts, every lesson would count in a practical way. Literacy in Chinese is a very long game. In terms of morale, being able to read a whole 'thing' does wonders.
• Starting from examples, rather than theory, would be taking advantage of your position in Shanghai. Something like the Radical Show may be worth doing, but could be done from anywhere.
• Plenty of stuff out there for every level.

My concern is this. John Pasden had a full time job before this video idea came along and I would think that the addition of this responsibility to his workload is quite taxing at best. He also has to recruit "actors" from among other staff members who also have full time jobs already. This cant be easy. I really dont see how adding this new facet can be done effectively without adding someone to work on it. John has done some really neat stuff to date but when does he sleep? Maybe Im wrong but I think they are asking too much of him if he is to get no help long term.

 Now we have a point in time where Amber is leaving and a new show or shows must be developed and a new cast member could and should be added to replace her. What if the replacement show or shows happen to be video this time around and they hire a guy skilled in video to do it. Maybe the "Dear Frank show" (just as an example). A show that includes characters, vocab, culture, grammar, a mixture, or whatever, but the point is the second generation version would be video. Now you have video and you also have a video guy on board to help with other projects as well, and the head count stays the same. Just a thought. I am not privy to the inner workings of cpod so I apologize if this is a bad idea for reasons I can not see. 

urbandweller - Okay, in the interesy of expediency, I'm going to answer these questions, but I'm going to speak on what I know. I'm not trying to speak for ChinesePod, but I really don't want to see another fire flare up while they're all sleeping!

1) Frank is expensive. Frank doesn't speak Chinese very well. Frank can do nothing for ChinesePod BUT video work, so his usefulness there has to be weighed against how much it would cost to keep such a talented guy happily employed. By contrast, they can take the people they already have (very talented people, too) and do the best with what they've got.

2) Okay, here's where I can educate people. There's a lot of factors at play here, and they all have to be considered.

1. If you make a suggestion with these folks over a beer or over dinner and they go ahead and take your suggestion into a tangible product, you get nothing. It would be nice if you got some credit for the idea, but they owe you nothing legally. Morally... yes. I think there should be a tip of the hat.
2. Most companies, when a professional freelancer wants to submit an idea to them, will require said freelancer to sign a waiver stating that it will hold them blameless in the event that they were already in development on a similar product.
3. Number 2 didn't happen with me and CPod because they had no idea what I had planned. I made a fairly informal presentation to them using my laptop. I had come there with a plan. They had no clue.
4. Given my long-standing relationship with these folks, I didn't think about bringing along any legal documentation to protect myself OR them. Not to mention the fact that my knowledge of copyright law doesn't extend to China.
5. As a producer, if you had brought a show to NBC about six friends living in Manhattan and their wacky adventures and a year later, you saw "Friends" on the air... yes, you should be prepared to fight for your idea. You should also be prepared to lose.
6. ChinesePod was never under any obligation to include me in any show involving teaching Chinese characters. As I said in my proposal, going into video was inevitable. I offered to be a part of that evolution for them because I know what I'm doing in this arena and, at the time, they didn't.

That's all there is to it. When I first saw the show and was upset by it, it wasn't because I felt like they screwed me and were using my idea to make money. It was because, due to our long-standing friendship beyond this site, I would have appreciated them saying, "Hey, we really liked your idea, but we can't afford to bring you on to produce it. We're going to take our own stab at it. Wish us luck!"

You know why that didn't happen? Because they had forgotten all about me and my little proposal. It was a year ago, and while the pitch was very important to me, it had simply dropped off their radar.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, John Pasden is a very good man. There may have been some lingering subliminal junk in his head about my show, but they owed me nothing, and he didn't steal.

'Nuff said.

cpod is officially asking the community for ideas...i think if they have been paying attention they could easily have a mile long list of good stuff by now! just look at the recent Radical post!

also, i think we need more clarification on a couple things here...  

1. you have a guy like frank that is clearly talented enough to do this stuff and they turn him down?

2. if i submit something to cpod tomorrow and they run with it...do i get the credit? do i get to work on it too?? do i get paid??  

jsut thinking out loud here...

Could ChinesePod maybe do something like this - this was great, and very funny :)

Learn Cantonese

 Maybe it's too much time and resources needed for something like this. If that's the case, I agree with other Poddies that WTS and Vocab tour were great. Bring them back :)

John? Ken? no comments?

I must agree with Frank.  Using the Chinese Pod community to produce videos for the site will produce some useful stuff and some silly stuff but all in all not enough useful stuff for us, the learners.  Why not make the CPod website more community friendly and allow the community to produce written content that is desperately needed, such as grammar descriptions, example sentences, radical info, and even photographs.

On the other hand as xsw234rfv and others pointed out Chinese Pod moves too fast.  You need to finish what you started before you can move on!!  My biggest gripe, which I have brought up earlier http://chinesepod.com/community/conversations/post/3942, is that the grammar guide is still a weak and largely useless resource on CPod.  How about you fix that first then ask us to make videos for you.  I for one would love to help expand the grammar guide, yet I have no interest right now in making videos, a laborious and difficult task, for the company.

John, you ask us for ideas on how we can help you in expanding CPod's video resoucres.  Though I'm sure there are people that want to do that I say you better finish what you started before you get the chance to ask us to help you out.

I've seen your video frank and the way you presented in your "demo" really came across a lot better than the first attempt here on cPOD. It's all about timing and presentation.. and also your method of highlighting the side radicals and so forth..

Just thinking out loud here...

I'm a professional video producer, and as big a fan as I am of ChinesePod, I don't have the time to do this kind of work for free. Neither does any other video producer that I know. Assuming that trend holds largely true, what you're left with is going to be amateur hour. This worries me.

One of the things that I have always respected about ChinesePod is that even when it was just three of them in a closet that smelled of week-old xiaolongbao, they put out a product that was on par with any outfit ten times their size. It was polished and professionally produced and you couldn't tell it was all done on a shoestring budget. They knew what their limitations were and they didn't do anything they couldn't do well.

I wish they'd handle the video stuff the same way. 

I personally don't care whether or not the content of videos are "innovative", as long as they are informative and interesting.

I agree, the communities self-created videos are fine if there left in the community section, unless some one comes up with an amazing idea and format, but surely, that's for chinesepod to figure out.

Chinesepod can facilitate users videos, but they shouldn't rely on them, unless I'm missing something :s

Let me play devil's advocate here and ask the same question RJ asked:

Does CPod currently have the resources (people and money) to continue producing professional calibre video?

I ask for two reasons:

1.  Why would you stop producing two incredibly popular, and what seemed like highly effective learning tools, in Vocab Tour and What's the Story?

2.  Asking the community to create its own videos seems to confirm (at least in my mind) that CPod doesn't have the resources to properly produce video.  Not to say that CPod isn't full of creative users, but can you imagine the lack of continuity and educational structure that would come from user-created video?

My worry is that many of the resources (again, people and money) that would have previously been allocated solely to CPod, have now been spread out to the other LanguagePods. 

Maybe I'm way off here, but it'd be really cool if the suits at CPod cut to the chase for once and gave it to us straight, instead of feeding us fluff.  We're big boys and girls here, we can take it!

Frank is hatless. Frank has no hat.

I still believe in the idea of an story-based edutainment series.  People love stories, and when people are having fun their minds open to learning.

Think about all the funny lines from great comedies or the cool parts of our favorite movies and television shows that we never forget.  The only trick is how to blend the education and entertaining content together to form a cohesive whole that is enoyable and engaging to watch.

Maybe our friend Frank might be interested in throwing his hat into the ring? 

I am still waiting for a way to learn how to write characters in a fun way ... Be that with videos, interactive gadgets, whatever.

Amen

John, why trying something new every month or two? I don't understand it. Why so much pressure?

Please put some work into improvements of the website: better forum (search, threads, ...), better traditional character support, better flashcards (eg spaced repetition system).

And more vocab tours, more WTSs.

For each podcast, I would prefer something like a "Video Review" to complement the "Audio Review" we now have.

The video content could directly link to the expansion sentences and exercises, re-inforcing the lesson.

Of course, logistically it may not be realistic, given the time and effort required to produce video.

What's the story was already great.  I feel that there was still plenty of educational value left.

The video above is not helpful to me.  The first reason is what RJ just said.  The second is that just slapping on the right pronunciation doesn't help.  It would need to really pinpoint what's wrong with the first pronunciation in order to be helpful.  But even then, that's only helpful if they're making the same mistakes I do.

My other concern regarding the above video is with dubbing. We loose authentic native body language, facial expressions, and lip movements. (nothing against the actors btw). The situational visual will help some, but I fear we are loosing something valuable. 

I agree with RJ and Sebire. 

The Vocab Tour was my favorite, but WTS was just as good from a learning perspective.  I think continuing a mixture of both would be great - each one has its own unique value and they both were "polished."

To echo Sebire, why reinvent the wheel (in this case, 2 wheels)?

Yeah, I liked both vocab tour and WTS, I found them incredibly helpful. Although innovation is good, it seems a shame to stop when you're on a winner.

Needs more buzz. This confused me untill I listened to the podcast.

Excellent general idea though. I also agree with no subs. Directly linking what you hear with what you see happening is much more valuable than the character/pinyin reinforcement you get from subs.

btw, that's the lovely Christela from FrenchPod, and my boy Leo from SpanishPod.

rekkinize!

John,

Why stop the "WTS" and "Vocab tour" episodes? They were both popular. Why so much pressure to "move on"? What are your long term video goals? Do you have sufficient resources allocated to achieve them?

John,

I think it boils down to where this vide would be placed. If it's going to be under the same tab with the actual lesson, then you have an opportunity here to really drive home the vocabulary while getting the added benefit of exposing students to the characters in context. Huge.

And while, yes, a lot of other people are doing that, or have done it, why allow your students to go somewhere else if you don't have to? But, hey... you know how I feel about this subject already. LOL

I do agree that if you can get users to generate content then it alters the landscape a bit. My only worry is that badly produced content is worse than no content at all.

Just my two kuai. Don't spend them all in one place.

Frank,

This occurred to us as well, but we're very wary of the "video + subtitles = learning" idea. There's already tons of that out there already anyway.

But if ChinesePod users are actually using video to practice their Chinese, and we can somehow augment those efforts and help share them with other users, then there's a lot more potential for real learning...

This was cute. If you'd added subtitles in simplified Chinese, Pinyin and perhaps English...

now thats is an interesting idea! creating a type of visual...someone actually acting out the podcast...hmmmm...you could be onto something here cpod!

i like it and would defintely watch it again!