GuideVue

When I’m stressed out I find it relaxing to put my spices in alphabetical order. Knowing this you may understand why I am rather captivated by GuideVue, the technology introduced recently in my Emerging Tech class. It has flow charts! And multiple A-V stuff. And it’s easier to use than it appears - so it makes me look smart. Girl geek heaven.

GuideVue is a mobile teaching application that allows users to access step-by-step instructions from experts. Any combination of text, still photos, slides with charts or diagrams, spoken narration, sounds or video can be used to support teaching based on a structured workflow skeleton.

I had a class assignment to author a GuideVue. I asked my husband for a suggestion for a topic. Bob is an avid do-it-yourself enthusiast. He is convinced dry wall finishing is a skill everyone needs. Before I knew it we were drawn into a multi-night family project on dry walling. It did turn out to be time consuming. To draft and revise a flow chart for even a simple project like taping a dry wall seam took the better part of two evenings. The script was partly a product of the flow chart and took about an additional hour. Gathering the materials and shooting the still photos while finishing two dry wall seams was another full evening. There was another hour involved for the shots of sanding the dry work the next day.

I spent an afternoon editing the still photos. (But I tend to get carried away photoediting so many folks would save time there.) This was the first time I had used the GuideVue authoring program. It’s pretty clear with a simple, uncluttered interface. The help section appears to be a work-in-progress so there was a bit of trial and error involved. A GuideVue on authoring GuideVues would be helpful. I set aside a whole Saturday to build the skeleton, add the photos and add the sound. It actually spilled over to a second day. I used Audacity to generate MP3's of the narration and bring them over to the author. It turned out to be a labor-intense but enjoyable family project.

I was particularly impressed by the ability to separate out the audio giving the possibility of making multiple versions with different soundtracks. The potential to customize the narration by gender, accent or jargon is powerful enhancement to social learning. The model could “sound so much like me.” I wanted to potentiate dual coding. Also I wanted to consider the needs of the hard of hearing and those with limited English. So I treated the text like captioning and matched the narration to the text. I could easily make another version following Bob’s suggestion to use the spoken narration to provide helpful hints and more advanced material.

Another advantage I found was the use of short segments. Producing good-quality long videos is not an easy task. However, many people can manage quite acceptable short segments. With GuideVue an author doesn’t need advanced filming, recording or editing skills.

GuideVue is still in development with a few glitches yet to be worked out. I think it has tremendous potential for community educators - religious and cultural school teachers, craft instructors, sports and recreation teachers. Just think of having an effective way to share a skill - donning kimono, braiding challah, tying a bowline knot - with a student miles away. GuideVue is grounded in educational theory. Creating the flow chart for the skeleton forces the organization that is a challenge for many community educators. The possibility of customizing for local needs is especially appealing. Preparing a GuideVue is somewhat time-consuming. I think many dedicated community educators will see this as a labor of love and well worth the effort. GuideVue authoring and viewing are already fairly easy to use. When the last bugs are cleaned up and the help section is completed, this will be a very useful tool for community educators.