Tips to make animations for educational purposes
Have you ever wonder about the success of Khan Academy or Ted-Ed?
Yes. They are free — which is extremely tempting.
Yes. They have good content, with great diversity for a large audience.
And yes. They use ANIMATION — an engaging and beautiful tool for educators all over the world.
Animation for educational purposes has been rising in great number recently. Animations enhance the learning experiences of learner: more visual, more sound, more engagement then as a result, more learning outcomes. It is proven as an effective tool for education and training. The question is, how to use them effectively?
1. Chose the right content.
Don’t just throw everything at your students. Less is more.
E-learning is all about leveling up learner’s experiences and convenience with technology. They need something new and revolutionary than just throwing a book at their faces! Moreover, the lack of communication and interaction with the shorter memory span of young generation nowadays results in a decrease in their understanding. In fact, putting tons of charts or numbers on the screen does nothing but confuses the learners.
The key is to choose the most important information. This helps your learners identify the focus of the lesson, keeps them concentrated then, as a result, betters their learning outcomes.
However, it would be meaningless if you skip too much information. Despite the strong explaining power of animation, if too little knowledge, or to be more specific, too little facts, charts, and numbers to clear up the ideas, is presented, students will have difficulties in understanding also. Thus, just provide students enough information to follow but make sure those are critical points of the lessons.
2. Choose the right style
The number of animation styles offered may be overwhelming for you. There are various types but these are the most common for educational purposes:
- 2D cartoon animation
- 3D animation
- Motion graphics
- Hand-drawn animation
- Whiteboard animation
- Infographic animation
A motion graphics animation example of nursing education training.
Each type of animation has its own advantages as well as disadvantages. Some are more complicated in the producing process but result in a more professional vibe. Some are much simpler but still impress your students. Every type of animation could suit your courses, you just have to choose what is the most appropriate. Moreover, there are many ways to combine these types of animation with your other teaching materials. It’d be best if you contact a professional animation studio for more information.
3. Boost engagement? Add creativity!
You don’t want your educational animated videos to be just a plain and boring piece of running text or number. The main concept of animation for educational purposes is to make online learning more entertaining while remaining informative. Animation should be fun despite how complicated and academic it is about.
- Storytelling: Lots of educational organizations transform their lessons into motivational and inspiring stories. When the human factor is added to the video, students feel more relatable and connected to the courses. This is why the more relevant to the reality courses are, the more engaged students become.
- Humor: You don’t need a professional entertainer to live up your course. Fun is in everything, design and content, text and voiceover. It is not necessary to include teacher joke somewhere in the video, imagination runs free with animation.
The potential of animation is undeniable. The animation could help learners boost their engagement and understanding, which results in better learning outcomes. Moreover, with new technology, the animation is produced at a more reasonable cost. Choose the right format and create the right content, then, animation works.
Get a Free example on how to create effective animations for education.
Originally published at www.flearningstudio.com.
