Creating a Python for PSSE lesson

  1. Overview

    Building a free 5 part learning Python basics video course.

    Power Systems engineers sign up with their name + email to begin the course.

    We deliver the course via email, a new lesson twice a week.

    Each lesson consists of:

    1. A video (hosted on wistia with youtube backup)
    2. A short PDF that has some examples for them to follow
    3. An invitation for them to email us their solutions

    Its pretty easy to embed the video or a link to it in an email, along with the link to the PDF on s3. We'll have a new bucket called power-systems-training (create it if it doesn't exist)

    The goal of the course is to cover what we'd cover in the first day of our training couse, minus any PSSE specific parts.

    Then give the attendee an opportunity to get their manager to sign off on buying a licence for the full course.

  2. Lesson selection

    https://docs.google.com/a/whit.com.au/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AkmVPEJtPMnPdGJCXzhVRkdtR3dBd1NaQjRVS19pSkE

    Pick a lesson from the link.

  3. Write a lesson outline

    Before you record any video:

    Write an outline of what you plan to cover. Also write the examples PDF first before recording the video.

    That way you'll know roughly what you want to talk about before recording. Keep in mind the goal for videos to be 5 minutes in length (total).

  4. Recording Video

    You probably will need to record at least one video on windows (the installation for Python, and opening IDLE)

    The method I've used to do that is the first few steps of this procedure: https://www.procedureus.com/procedures/30/recording-psse-video/

  5. Editing the video

    Use our license of ScreenFlow to edit your video on the mac.

    We have a standard intro and outro text and jingle. We can use them throughout the videos so it looks more professional, and save re-inventing the editing wheel each time.

    Keep an eye on the video length. Aim for around 5 minutes.

  6. Export the video

    Export the video as a .mov file.

    I've found the export to Youtube feature doesn't work in ScreenFlow

    Once you've got the .mov - upload it to both wistia and youtube.

    In your youtube description include a link to our training site in the first sentence (otherwise it won't show up for people to click on)

  7. Add the video to mailchimp

    We'll use mailchimp to drip-feed these video tutorials.

    Follow the procedure here to add a mailchimp marketing campaign.

    https://www.procedureus.com/procedures/28/add-new-email-to-mailchimp-dripfeed/