Educational animations are animations produced for the specific purpose of fostering learning. It is associated with educational technology with the way it supports teaching and learning through the use of technological tools to facilitate learning and to improve performance.
Background
The popularity of using animations to help learners understand and remember information has greatly increased since the advent of powerful graphics-oriented computers. This technology allows animations to be produced much more easily and cheaply than in former years. Previously, traditional animation required specialised labour-intensive techniques that were both time-consuming and expensive. In contrast, software is now available that makes it possible for individual educators to author their own animations without the need for specialist expertise. Teachers are no longer limited to relying on static graphics but can readily convert them into educational animations.
Animations for education
Educators are enthusiastically taking up the opportunities that computer animation offers for depicting dynamic content. For example, PowerPoint now has an easy-to-use animation facility that, in the right hands, can produce very effective educational animations. Because animations can explicitly depict changes over time (temporal changes), they seem ideally suited to the teaching of processes and procedures. When used to present dynamic content, animations can mirror both the changes in position (translation), and the changes in form (transformation) that are fundamental to learning this type of subject matter.
In contrast with static pictures, animations can show temporal change directly (rather than having to indicate it indirectly using auxiliary markings such as arrows and motion lines). Using animations instead of static graphics removes the need for these added markings so that displays can be not only simpler and less cluttered, but also more vivid, engaging, and more intuitively comprehended. In addition, the learner does not have to interpret the auxiliary markings and try to infer the changes that they summarise. Such interpretation and inference may demand a level of graphicacy skills that the learner does not possess. With animated depictions, information about the changes involved is available to be read straight from the display without the learner needing to perform mental animation. It's a bit of an exaggeration, but it's more like being kissed instead of reading about a kiss.
Research evidence about the educational effectiveness of animations is mixed. Various investigations have compared the educational effectiveness of static and animated displays across a number of content domains. While there have been some findings that show positive effects of animations on learning, other studies have found no effects or even negative effects. Some propose that the efficacy depends on the way the animation characteristics engages the psychological functioning of the learner. In general, it can be concluded that animations are not intrinsically more effective than static graphics. Rather, the particular characteristics of individual animations and how they are used to play a key role in the effects that they have on learning.
Do animations make learning faster? Well-designed animations may help students learn faster and easier. They are also excellent aid to teachers when it comes to explaining difficult subjects. The difficulty of subjects may arise due to the involvement of mathematics or imagination. For instance, the electric current is invisible. The operation of electric circuits is difficult for students to understand at the beginning. With the aid of computer animations, learning and teaching might become easier, faster and amusing.
According to V.M. Williamson and M.R. Abraham, animation helps students learn in two ways. It facilitates the creation of mental representations of concepts, phenomenon, and processes and it also replaces difficult cognitive processes (e.g. abstraction, imagination). There are also studies that revealed that learning is facilitated as animation create positive attitude among the learners, leading to positive learning outcomes.