Making things visual is a very important asset in learning and training activities. More and more organizations are adding audiovisual elements into their learning, training and communication strategies. Some examples:

• The World Bank recently launched his YouTube-application in order to broadcast short multimedia documentaries related to its activities on fighting against poverty.

• Oxfam started a Flickr-community where all its members can post Oxfam related photos.

• UNICEF radio/video is offering podcasts and vodcasts related to the Millenium Development Goals.

Not only content becomes more audiovisual also training methods. Mindmapping as a powerfull tool for brainstorming and project planning and several free tools (Mindomo, Freemind) to support this. As a start it is always good to check the Period Table of Visualization methods in order to get inspiration for visual strategies in your training activities. There is already too much text into this post, so why not end in an audiovisual way with an inspiring streaming video of Hans Rosling who is debunking third-world myths through data-visualization.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUwS1uAdUcI]