The consumption of video in 2022 has drastically increased. But most people these days prefer watching animated videos as they are amusing while being informative.
Today in the education sector, animated videos have become an uprising. It might be surprising for most people, but according to the latest study, every 1 out of 2 teachers believes that using a video can stimulate creativity.
Whereas approximately 66% of them believe using animated videos in teaching can increase the motivation rate, while 62% believe it’s an effective teaching method.
Moreover, many video production companies have specifically started offering educational video production services after analyzing the increase in demand for educational videos.
If you’re impressed with these statistics and ready to incorporate this new teaching method, then hold on.
Adding an animated educational video is a great idea, but you should know that every coin has two sides. Or I would say everything has its own set of pros and cons.
Do it in the right way, and it will bring innumerable advantages. Make mistakes, and everything will fall apart.
Scared? Don’t be.
Today in this blog, we are looking at the pros and cons of using animated videos in eLearning.
Are you ready? Let’s get started.
What are Animated Educational Videos?
Educational animations, also known as animated educational videos, are animations produced for learning purposes.
However, there is some clarification required here. The animations we are talking about in this post are not fancy transitions or twirling bullets in your educational slides.
The animated videos are used as supporting tools. These videos help to visualize textual materials and assist the learner in better understanding abstract and complex concepts.
Also, if you want animated educational videos, no worries, if you Google, you’ll find some of the best animation companies who are offering this service at a very affordable rate.
Now let’s take a look at the advantages of using educational videos.
Using Animation Videos in the Education: Pros
1. Helps in visualizing complex concepts
Even the most complicated ideas may be shown and simplified with the use of animations. According to Dr.James L. McQuivey of Forrester Research, one minute of web video is equivalent to around 1.8 million printed words.
When it comes to instructional design and teaching, animated learning videos shine because of their ability to help viewers better visualize concepts.
Educational animations are a must if your course covers complex material like science or any other subject that requires more than a simple explanation to help students grasp key concepts. They visualize the data, translate it into visuals, and then animate the visuals to explain the procedure.
Electric current, for example, is unseen, and the workings of an electric circuit are complex and difficult to grasp for beginners. The standard method of instruction calls for the use of marked, arrowed, and motion-lined static images to convey the necessary information.
Rather than implying the process by indicating it with arrows and motion lines, animations can depict temporal change explicitly. One way to make visual assistance easier to understand and use are to use animation.
2. Increase the rate of learning
Though they take a long time to make, animations really help students save time in the long run.
Trivia: the brain processes image 60,000 times quicker than words, and 90% of the information delivered to the brain is visual.
There are two ways in which animation benefits education. It helps with replacing laborious cognitive processes and aids in the conceptualization of new ideas, phenomena, and procedures (ex: abstraction, imagination).
Animated videos help students learn faster since they provide visuals straight away. In this way, students would have a much easier time grasping the concepts taught, and they would likely retain the material better as well.
3. Boost participation
In addition, animations can also be integrated into the teaching and grading of a wide variety of subjects, from business administration to technology.
Evidence from these researchers shows that animated videos can increase students’ learning in a number of significant ways.
Inspiring students is just as important as instructing them. Teachers may struggle to inspire their online students through lectures and lengthy reading assignments unless the subjects are of genuine interest to the pupils. The situation deteriorates more when dealing with advanced topics like mathematics or physics.
As everyone knows, animations can instantly perk up a dull environment, and those with high-quality images and music can make learning more fun and engaging.
Stress is reduced, and attention is maintained over the duration of the lesson, thanks to the use of animations.
Using Animation Videos in the Education: Cons
1. Get in the way of pupils’ education
According to a recent paper published in the European Journal of Psychology of Education, irrelevant animation features might cause viewers to lose focus on the intended ideas.
Students are readily sidetracked from their studies by animations and other “fun” learning resources. One possible source of distraction is that the films themselves provide little in the way of background information.
You need to know exactly what you want students to take away from your educational animations, so that gorgeous design isn’t enough. The videos, or at least parts of them, should have some educational value.
2. Excessive use of bandwidth
The main drawback of using animations is the time it takes for them to load. Because of their potential big file size, they may use a lot of data transfer.
Even if video-streaming services improve load times, students must have access to a fast Internet connection.
A loading screen, believe it or not, is more annoying than a poorly executed animation. It’s a known issue with a video that the more detail there is, the longer it takes to load.
3. Not-beginner friendly
Making animated educational videos is possible even for novices. The simplest solution is to utilize the aforementioned software since it only requires drag-and-drop operations to produce a respectable video.
It’s true that they do what’s expected of them, but the branding benefits are little, and they’re not applicable to anything specific.
However, the animation creation process is not simple if you want to present a complicated concept or an entire course. Therefore, making your own animations is tough unless you have formal experience in the field.
There is also the option of using the writing and storyboarding stages of production, although professional-level illustration and animation are difficult.
In Conclusion
Animated educational videos, like the rest of the course, require careful planning to ensure that students learn as much as possible from them. They are effective because they interest and inspire kids to learn and aid in their progress.
Though they have their limitations, with careful instructional design, animations may be honed to better suit the needs of individual students.
