30-35 minutes is much shorter than I envisioned. There should be a lot of sections with a number of visual examples for each issue. Repetition and different approaches to the subject are important. Very few people will ever have the opportunity to take a chamber ride, but there sure is a lot that can be learned especially with a few teaching aids. Done well, you would avoid talking heads entirely so narration can be offered in any language.
Correct me if I am wrong, but a video the student could take home and keep would be an improvement to the approach. The instructor could also choose to take sections for classroom presentations.
Other than Hi-Def, what could make a video of the physics and physiology of diving become obsolete? Granted, it would be prudent to produce the video with minimal focus on equipment that might date the production, and/or be an implied endorsement look how many double hose regulators Mike Nelson sold.
I don't think you need to teach reading decompression tables or computers to teach the concepts. They remain virtually unchanged since well before video, most before I was alive. Separate DVDs that are intended to deal with current equipment related issues can be replaceabled in the set, and would be much less expensive to produce.
I appreciate that the subject is difficult and expensive to teach well. I do not believe that most students do not care to learn it in greater detail than they have been taught. Sure, a lot of quickie tropical dive courses won't use it. But I am guessing that most people interested enough to visit this board would value the resource.
Of course, having such DVD's in the student's possession as a learning and resource tool is ideal.
Keep in mind that I first watched these around 1981. Video tapes of this quality were expensive back then. It would cost the instructor hundreds of dollars for the series. Take home videos weren't really an option. Jeppesen still makes flight training materials, but they ceased making scuba educational materials years ago. Many scuba instructors from several agencies would use these. Jeppesen was focused on education as were most instructors. Agencies began to move away from generic tools toward "branding" with manuals and videos being the first casualties of the marketing wars. After a natural disaster damaged Jeppesen facilities, the company decided to cease their scuba education products when they resumed operations.
Once PDIC joined the marketing out of necessity, they finally landed on the current PDIC Diving Manual which is packed full of information, but many complain that it is a dry read and that it gives too much information for the ADHD mentality of the modern student.
PDIC Brasil went all out when translating and created the best manuals I've ever seen turning the PDIC program from OW to Tech into a 100% DIR program with Marcus Werneck, a PDIC and GUE IT, at the helm. The information, color photos, and layout beat everything at the time and the student had power point and related CD-Rom and DVDs to every course, including all specialties, in their student kits. Unfortunately, if you can't read Portugese, you're lost. I went into a Brasilan restaurant to recruit a translator myself.
What makes the Jeppesen series dated is ascent rates, diving skills, equipment, emergency procedures and the fact that the US Navy Tables have been changed. One of the best tools for understanding Navy Tables is George S. Lewel's
Decompression Workbook: A Simplified Guide to Understanding Decompression Problems. While it will run you through tables at the old 60 ft/min ascent rate, few instructors today are aware that you can work through the tables and plan dives in so many ways. It's almost a must and still available at Amazon.com. For any instructor who teaches tables, you'll be impressed at what you may add to courses after working your way through the book. One old instructor I know can combine his knowledge of dive tables, deco theory, ratio decompression and what not to show you operations within tables that would probably amaze all but the top decompression modelers. It's like he can count in Babylonian Base 15, use an abacus, and a calculator while Vulcan mind-melding with Rain Man.
I believe that students really do enjoy learning to dive and use tools such as tables. Too many instructors don't understand them to teach them. I was paid to coach a group of NAUI nitrox instructors who didn't understand their agency's nitrox and dive tables. We are becoming a society that says, "If it seems hard, skip it." Tables have a lot more to say than most divers believe.
I actually became a PSAI instructor because of the materials. PSAI's cave, wreck, trimix and TEAM manuals are all up to date and provide the student information that I can work with to teach safer diving. Many ignorant divers reject PSAI due to their narcosis management programs and haven't read their cave, wreck and technical emergency accident management manuals from cover to cover. The black & white photos show divers showing better skills, streamlining and equipment minimalism better than any agency apart from GUE and UTD. The information inside discusses modern deco theories and bubble models and not just neo-Haldanean models. Some power points are stellar while others need work, but as an instructor I can very easily use these to teach both DIR and common approaches to diving strategy.
I think educators and students can all benefit from generic materials that are full of information and not stuffed with agency marketing. I miss those days so much.
)
