Emergency Preparedness Systems: Conversation with Greg Friese

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Greg Friese, MS, NREMT-P is president of Emergency Preparedness Systems LLC and a paramedic, educator, author, and outdoor enthusiast. To learn more and to receive rapid e-learning design and production tips subscribe to the EPS blog at their site (link no longer exists.

Geetesh: Tell us more about yourself, Emergency Preparedness Systems LLC, and the training programs you create.

Greg: I am the founder and president of Emergency Preparedness Systems LLC. EPS does four things:

• We create narrated multimedia Flash movies for emergency responders.
• We convert existing classroom training for online delivery.
• We design and deliver new lessons and curriculum for online delivery that honor student’s knowledge, experience, and time.
• We teach our proven rapid e-learning for emergency responders production process to educators and training officers.

Our training programs for EMTs and paramedics, generally 25-30 minutes long, are used for continuing or refresher education. Since emergency responders work rotating shifts, it is very difficult for all employees to be in the training room together. Online lessons allow asynchronous delivery of the exact same content across multiple shifts and multiple stations. If users are called out for an emergency they can resume the training program when they return. Each lesson is approved by the Continuing Education Coordinating Board for EMS so students know that it will be accepted for local, state, or national recertification requirements. Most EPS content is distributed through CentreLearn and RapidCE.

Geetesh: Why do you use PowerPoint as the starting point for the creation of these programs? And what else do you use to enhance and distribute these programs?

Greg: We use PowerPoint for several reasons. First of all, it is an excellent tool for us to storyboard a lesson. During initial production, each slide is given a working title and the script for the audio narration is written in the notes view. As production and editing progress, notes for images, objects, and animations are added to the notes view. Once the script is finalized, slide production begins which includes a descriptive slide title and sub-title, insertion of images and objects, and animation formatting.

The final step is to convert the PowerPoint slides to Flash using Articulate Presenter. The audio is inserted and synchronized with the PowerPoint slide animations. The end-user watches a narrated Flash movie inside the Articulate Presenter player. They may not even be aware that they are watching a movie that was created with PowerPoint.

We also use another Articulate product called Engage to create and insert custom Flash learning objects into the PowerPoint. The Articulate Engage Interactions publish inside the Articulate Presenter movie.