Animation

Animation is a form of media that sequentially plays moving pictures from illustrations, but does not necessarily use photorealistic images like in photography or live-action videos.

Definition

Animations are moving pictures or videos that use illustrations instead of photorealistic or real-life images. Animated illustrations can depict people, but they can also depict abstract shapes and visual elements that are not possible in photography and live-action video.

Animations are also by definition videos that play through a sequence. However, animations can also be interactive in that the user can influence or control aspects about the animation through their own intervention (usually by clicking on or tapping a screen). Media in educational products that use animations with interactive functions are commonly called interactive learning objects.

Additional Information

Animations are a form of media that are used to convey information that use moving pictures and illustrations to communicate. The value in animations is the ability to convey information to illustrate information over time. As a result, animations are useful for conveying how processes work over time because the animation itself runs from a start to a finish point - illustrating a beginning to the end.

Animations are often regarded as an excellent medium for communicating ideas that are hard to put into words or for how concepts are related to each other and why.

There are two ways that animations are typically used:

1) As a playback of moving illustrations, much like a cartoon or conventional video

2) As an interactive animation, where learners can click on, press, or otherwise manipulate the animation screen to interact with the animation and reveal information as they interact.

First, the animation can be sequentially played, just like a traditional live-action video. This mode of animation can be thought of as how TV cartoons exist. In this sense, the user can only typically control when to play the cartoon and whether to fast forward, rewind, pause, stop, or change the speed of playback.

However, animations also offer unique ways of conveying information that are not always possible with sequential video. Animations can be used within interactive learning objects to display or select specific animated sequences or to provide new information in response to users' interactions. For instance, a user can click on an interactive animation to make an object move, reveal information, or go to a new screen. In this way, most apps and computer software use interactive animations for their navigations and interfaces to change the screen and respond to users' inputs.

Animations also afford designers with the ability to provide more abstract information in their media in comparison to live-action video. Although live-action video that captures a person talking can convey nonverbal cues and contexts better through dialogue-style conversation, an animation can convey abstract concepts, ideas, and events through the use of shapes, objects, colors, sizes, placement, and layout on the animation screen. Furthermore, such animations can be more readily interacted with by users through clicking, moving, and navigating through the animated screen. Thus, if designed as such, an animation can provide an interactive experience to learners that is not possible with conventional playback of video.

Interactive learning objects that are animated are also an excellent way to simulate phenomena that are difficult to represent in words. Simulations give learners the ability to interact with, experiment with, and otherwise manipulate how things interact. An interactive animation that highlights the relationships between concepts, demonstrates how conceptual models or processes work, or mirrors the ways that things interact in real life are all valuable methods for teaching complex concepts.

Tips and Tricks

• Animations are a valuable way for conveying abstract ideas, concepts, and procedures - especially flowcharts of how work is done!
• Animations can convey information that real-life video cannot as easily. Try thinking about ways that complex concepts can be represented as illustrations, and also by using animation and movement to show how things are related. It can be something as simple as representing how concepts are related as shapes, and using lines between them to represent relationships. Movement of the illustrations on the screen can emphasize aspects as people interact
• For illustrations in animations, you can use shapes, color, object size, drawings and images to represent people, places, things, ideas, and concepts. When animating the motion, think about how the placement of objects and how they will be moved around the screen can also represent ideas and concepts.
• Think of ways that an animation could be interactive, or how a user might click on, drag, touch, or otherwise manipulate the objects on the screen to further reveal information. This could be something as simple as a matching game, but also could be as complex as a simulation of how different concepts interact!

Related Concepts

• Media and multimedia
• Interactions and activities
• Video
• Interactive learning object
• Simulation
• Videogame

Examples

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External Resources

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