Not everyone that reads this column is a trainer - at least in the "assigned" sense. But you all have responsibility for training yourselves, and many of you are involved in training your fellow officers, either as an actual instructor or as an FTO or a supervisor.
Once upon a time, being a trainer meant actually standing up and teaching a class. We still do a lot of that - us formal trainers, that is - but the law enforcement marketplace has evolved significantly over the past few years. Now, we have many other options for training ourselves and others. Some of those options involve self-run training programs, most typically provided as a CD or DVD disk. The idea is that you get the disk in the mail and simply pop it into your computer drive. Then sit back and absorb the training.
Right.
In other cases, those of us that have actually been trained as instructors receive disks from the various vendors whose systems we teach, or who have trained us as instructors. Those disks usually have PowerPoint files that we're supposed to use to deliver the manufacturer's ordained training. Many times, those PowerPoint files contain embedded videos. All we have to do is fire up the disk, start the PowerPoint file running, and click on the video for our class to watch it.
Right.
Here's the problem: whether you're a supervisor, FTO or department trainer, or just an officer that wants to learn more about your job, you are probably not a computer geek. When the disk doesn't run, or the video won't play, you're just out of luck. If you're really fortunate, there's someone in your department that knows how to fix the problem - but that's often not the case.
Here, then, is a quick and dirty list of things to do, before a training video crisis, in order to keep the train on the tracks.
Avoid Problems Ahead of Time
First things first - make sure that you're actually using the right program. That might sound silly, but this is why it is not: While PowerPoint is the most commonly used program for these types of training presentations, it's not cheap. You may have the most recent version of Microsoft Office (including PowerPoint) on your home PC, but your department might not. Governmental computers are notorious for running old versions of programs. Instead of PowerPoint 2003 or 2007, you may be running PowerPoint 2000, or even PowerPoint 97. If that's the case, you are going to have issues with files and videos that were created in the latest versions of the program.
Still, you may be okay. If your particular machine has had all of the updates to your Office programs installed, things may work out. Many municipal IT departments are behind on keeping all of their machines updated, which can be a pretty daunting task when you have dozens or hundreds of PCs scattered over multiple locations.
Go to the Microsoft Update website and run the update checker. Download and install all the recommended updates for your program. If it's never been done, expect there to be quite a few of them. By the way, at the same time your Office programs are updating, the site will ask to update your Windows installation, and you should allow that also. You may have to re-boot a couple of times, but keep repeating the process until the update site tells you there are no more updates that you need. Then try to run your program again.
There is another issue that you might run into. Some agencies, for whatever reason, have decided that they simply can't afford to purchase Microsoft Office for all their computers. They have chosen to install a free Office alternative program called OpenOffice. This is a great, open-source, software program that can be downloaded and installed for free.
OpenOffice is a suite of programs that look and function very much like Microsoft Office, and most Office files are two-way compatible with OpenOffice. That means that your PowerPoint file that you got from your training vendor will usually run fine in the OpenOffice version of PowerPoint which is called Impress.
The problem is that while Impress does a pretty good job of running PowerPoint files, it's terrible at playing videos that are embedded into PowerPoint files. If you run into this problem, your only alternative is likely to be running the videos separately, with Windows Media Player, for example.
You may not even realize that your department is using OpenOffice instead of Microsoft Office. If your PowerPoint file seems to run okay, but the videos just won't play, check your computer to make sure you're actually running the right program.
A Slightly Geekier Solution
The most common cause for a video not playing when it should is a broken hyperlink between the PowerPoint slide and the video file. PowerPoint does not embed the actual video into the slide, but merely creates a link between the slide and the video file.
The PowerPoint files and video files on most training disks are all properly linked. However, because some computers aren't equipped to run your training disk, or will run disks too slowly, it is advisable to copy the files to your hard drive in order to use them. Many times the hyperlinks are broken during this copying process.
The key to maintaining the links is to copy the entire directory that holds the files, or if you have hard drive space, copy the entire disk contents to your hard drive. This will assure that the links between PowerPoint slides and video files remain intact. As long as the directory is copied, along with all of its contents, your links will not break.
When you copy the disk contents to your hard drive, choose a location that is near the top of your directory tree. In other words, don't bury the files deep under several sub-directories. Ideally, you should copy the disk contents to your Windows Desktop, or even to your My Documents folder. This will reduce the likelihood of other problems cropping up.
There are a bunch of other things can cause problems with your training videos, and we'll talk about some of them in a future column. For now, if these suggestions haven't solved your particular problem, find yourself that one person in your department that actually enjoys dealing with these computer glitches. Be nice to them and buy them lunch.
Stay safe, and wear your vest! (and Buckle Up!)
