User Comments - pretzellogic

Posted on: Playing Mahjong

Interesting points about body language in video. For me, body language as a learning tool has been a mixed bag here in China. I'm as confused in Chinese as I am in English when stuff gets said by the taxi driver, ayi and so on, body language or not. For me, that's why audio is so critical; you realize that that's your only crutch, so you lean on it, and (the theory might go) you learn faster. Heaven forbid you have to only speak Chinese with someone on the phone. I'm still chicken to order from Annie's in Chinese on the phone, and in theory, I understand everything they'll say, and I know how to ask for everything we want.

Posted on: Playing Mahjong

I was torn to bring this up. I don't think much of Rosetta Stone as a language learning tool, but I have seen their examples of how they teach using video. I think Rosetta Stone shoots video better than Chinesepod at this point. But its early in the game, and only one video has been shot. Cpod has plenty of time to improve. you're right, I didn't want to bring up the synch thing, but there were about 4-6 other things I could have gone through about what didn't work technically for video that is fine for audio. Ultimately, I think I made my broader point.

Video is another option for learning language that Chinesepod offers, and that's a good thing; to be offered plenty of options is good. The fact that Cpod is now in a position to shoot 1000s of videos cheaply means that they will have an incredible opportunity to learn what works in video and what doesn't work in video. To me, that's especially cool; to learn something through doing that isn't obvious to the casual observer leads to organizational competence and competitive advantage. This is something exciting for Jenny the Chinese teacher as well as Jenny the Chinesepod senior business executive. The really interesting choice will be where Jenny the senior manager has to overrule Jenny the teacher on something that is otherwise a cool teaching tool.

Posted on: Playing Mahjong

baba, yes, this was before I saw what Cpod labeled this lesson in the video itself. "intermediate" is what I thought this lesson's level was when I had only looked at the dialogue tab itself. I could have agreed with "upper intermediate" as well. But I didn't see "upper intermediate" until I looked at the video lesson.

Posted on: Playing Mahjong

Ultimately here, I would also agree with you that the video format needs to be explored for what is achieved/not achieved. Cpod needs to create plenty of lessons in order to find out stuff like, "this type of subject doesn't really work well as a video Chinese lesson". It would be an interesting thing to learn as well. I don't think that expertise exists with any Cpod competitor as well, and would be a good topic to explore.

Posted on: Playing Mahjong

hehe, baba, I guess we'll agree to disagree. But I suppose this is going to be interesting. I would say that many of my comments aren't just required for "movie" quality video, they are required for any organization that would presume to be professional grade in the materials it creates. Chinesepod uses a studio with sound absorbing material, and a sound engineer and other tools/technologies to create mp3s, even though I know they could use lower quality, less expensive items. The reason they do so (I think) is because they know it leads to high quality sound reproduction, simpler sound editing and so on. I think if cpod is going to create video, it's going to use professional grade tools, materials, and processes. Cpod is going to find out what REAL videographers do to make QUALITY video, and Cpod is going to do those things. If no one on the Cpod staff went to film school, it would hire someone that at least has some video creation background, and would defer to them about what HIGH QUALITY VIDEO looks like. I expect this of a professional grade shop.

- John's face covered by the microphone is ABSOLUTELY UNACCEPTABLE. IT IS AMATEURISH. Yes, this is a video standard, not an audio standard. Cpod is going to create video, so now it must meet video standards. It is also striking that Jenny's face wasn't covered up by the microphone, but John's face is. Why is it ok to have John's face covered, but not Jenny's?

- yeah, at the end of the day, DO VIDEO RIGHT, OR DO NOT DO VIDEO. yep, that means edit as long as necessary to make sure camera shots are effective, and look good. That means get good at shooting quality video the first time so that editing doesn't take that long. Hell yes, Cpod finds out how to create QUALITY video, not just stuff to get something out the door. What is the STANDARD FOR GOOD VIDEO? CPOD FINDS OUT, AND DOES THAT. This is what Cpod did for sound, and I expect Cpod to do this for video as well.

Posted on: Playing Mahjong

I finally looked at the video....

- Please, next time video is shot, ensure that John's face is not 50-100% blocked by the microphone! Get an overhead boom mic or something, or wire John and Jenny up individually with wireless mics.

- label this an upper intermediate video lesson on the web page. Cpod labels this lesson upper intermediate on the video itself, but not on the web page, pdf and other related material. Be consistent.

- At the end of the day, much of the actual video is a good first start chinese video lesson. But this video isn't shot to the same standard as a real video or real movie would be. If cpod is serious about video, I think you should have movie standards.

---That means have 1 camera per spoken actor. The two female actors had speaking roles, but you couldn't see them speaking, unless they turned their heads toward the main camera.

---Some of the tiles were the subject of turns in the action, so there should have been close ups on the tiles in question during the dialogue. We can't really see the tiles like we would have in a movie. This would have made intense editing and camera work, but then that is what good video requires.

- experiment more with hanzi captions during the dialogue, and during John/Jenny's explanation. Interesting opportunity to mirror what happens on Chinese TV. Yes, more production work, but might be worth it. Maybe do hanzi captions for 2-5 of the next 10 lessons.

Posted on: Playing Mahjong

Cpod, any sense at this point of how many video lessons you'd like to create? If cpod is only creating around 20 video lessons, then it might not matter much the video lesson's length, or if the lessons are standardized. But if you're going to create maybe 50 video lessons or more, then going to standardized formats existing for audio lessons might help isolate what types of lessons work for video. 10 newbie, 10 ele, 10 intermediate, 10 upper inter, 10 advanced lessons might be a good way to start exploring video's capabilities, and Cpod's ability to exploit those capabilities.

Posted on: Playing Mahjong

- the creation of an audio-only lesson dialogue was fine. But then using an audio-only lesson dialogue in a video lesson seems to lead to some longer than average pauses in the lesson that don't really work for audio-only. Makes the audio seem boring and that not much is happening.

- Use the exact same format for video as is used for the audio: 5 levels from newbie to advanced, standardized sentence lengths and types per level and explanations. Rationale: Cpod really knows what its' doing in audio lesson creation, and has good processes in place to manage lesson creation. Video is a different animal than audio, and has different strengths and weaknesses that will not be apparent at first. Plus it took creating maybe 200 - 400 audio lessons before cpod started getting feedback that intermediate was maybe a more significant lesson level jump than customers wanted.

Posted on: Playing Mahjong

It sounds like these video lessons are still a development work in progress.  Just some suggestions:

- This was a relatively long lesson, video or not.  Maybe labeling it a "intermediate" is still warranted for video, as well as audio.  

- One of the great things that about 1500 audio lessons seems to have taught Cpod is that standardizing around number of sentences per newbie/ele/inter/upper inter has made lessons easy to record and explain, and help set student expectations around what a digestible "intermediate" lesson might look like.  Maybe Cpod should decide quickly on the number of sentences used in a video lesson, and decide if they are going to have ele, inter, and upper inter video lessons. 

Posted on: Mental Health Counseling

Ok, lets look at some data:

http://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide/country_reports/en/

http://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide_rates/en/

http://www.who.int/mental_health/evidence/en/

If I had more time, I'd actually go through more of this. I'll probably come back to this. I've heard plenty of horrific domestic violence stories in the States. But rather than get into a "dueling anecdotes" situation, I'd like to at least start with some data from some studies.