Create and Publish Educational Animations using PowerPoint

Learning does not just happen. There is a process in our minds that happen from the moment our eyes and ears perceive things. In this lecture, the path from senses, through working memory into long-term memory is discussed. What are the things that cause us to learn something? When does learning fail, and why? One answer is that our working memories may be overloaded. This lecture examines how this might happen.

As we saw in the previous lecture, our working memory has limited processing capacity. In fact, there are three types of processing capacities, and when these are exceeded, we don't learn too well. These capacities are described in this lecture.

This lecture describes the twelve multimedia learning principles our instructional assets must comply with for our messages to hit their target and stick.

A meta-study of more than 100 research reports is discussed in this lesson. Research supports the validity of multimedia learning principles and, as creators of educational animations, we should note them.

After completing this lecture, learners will be able to use Slide Master and Layout views to design consistent slide structures once and reuse them across their presentation, reducing repetitive formatting and saving significant development time.

In this lecture, the basic tools required to create educational animations in PowerPoint are described. PowerPoint is obviously the first important tool. It does not have to be the latest and greatest version of PowerPoint - even moderately old versions will be able to work. (So long as it has the animation features and can save in GIF and MP4 file formats.)

Audacity, Clipchamp, and EZgif are discussed.

The differences between desktop PowerPoint and PowerPoint online are also demonstrated.

To effectively produce education-grade animations in PowerPoint, we need to look at some of the features of PowerPointnt that is often overlooked by users. The purpose of this section is not to duplicate the work of some excellent PowerPoint training in the market, but to look at the features we will use as Education Animators.

• Slide Thumbnail pane

• Creating and inserting shapes

• Working with guides and gridlines

• Merge and edit shapes to create novel shapes.

Create a simple animation using the Morph transition in PowerPoint. add some voiceover narration using the inbuilt Sound recording capability of PowerPoint.

In this lecture, a step-by-step guide is provided to create a non-trivial animation. A gravity battery that stores renewable energy is simulated in this non-narrated animation. By the end of this lecture, participants should be able to create a similar kind of animation using motion paths, spin animation, and show and hide animations.

The Gravity battery Animation is completed and ready to be published online. In this lecture, we save it in various formats, including as an animated GIF file to present in Google slides, to create the appearance that the animation was actually created in Google Slides. This gives one the freedom to publish the slide with links or I-Frame code if one does not have the latest PowerPoint online facility.

Finally, in this lesson, we publish the gravity battery animation on a free Google Blogger site.

In this lecture, a hand-operated pneumatic pump is simulated using PowerPoint animation and timing techniques. Voice-over narration is created with the help of audio recorded from Clipchamp using Audacity.

I created this PowerPoint animation with text-to-speech using clipchamp. The last three slides are the ones that play as an animation. The first few slides only contain resources and some 'trial and error' stuff. I hope you find it useful, please let me know.

In this lecture, we cover a lot of ground.

1. We experiment with a little bit of HTML code to see what we can accomplish with our animations online. (Don't worry, this course is not about web programming!)

2. We completed the pneumatic pump animation and added some extra features with the help of Clipchamp.

3. We upload our animation to YouTube and embed the animation in a Google Sites page.

The rationale for publishing the animation in this way is to offer our viewers/learners additional resources associated with the animation that we created.

There are also a few other PowerPoint presentations included in this lesson. You can copy the techniques used to create your How-To videos without using anything other than PowerPoint. I used Udacity for sound clips, but you can record sound directly in PowerPoint. In the video's final version, I edited some musing and sound effects with Clipchamp. I hope you find this PowerPoint useful as an example to create your educational videos. Just save the PowerPoint as a .mp4 file in the end.  Copy this link to the video into your browser to look at one of the final products https://youtu.be/IUmfbWiepp0

When you use the Economic indicators animation, you may have to re-establish the links with the Excel data file called Economic Data.

The dissecting labs give participants an under-the-hood view of what happens in various animations and how they were created. The animations were created to solve specific problems a hypothetical set of students had with the topic. In this lecture. We 'dissect' a pumping heart to see how human blood circulation works. The animation tries to address the question "why is high blood pressure a problem?" After working through this lecture participants should be able to use an existing animation (found online with the correct licensing in place) in GIF format and adapt it to deal with a  specific problem in a lesson. The actual Pumping Heart animation is in the resources section

Electrical technicians will always need training. Much of their training can be accomplished in a simulated environment. PowerPoint animations can help in this regard. In this dissecting lab a very elementary basic electrical circuit is constructed that the hypothetical engineering learners can interact with to learn how a two-way light switch work. Some people call it a three-pole switch. After working through this animation participants will be able to create and publish an interactive set of slides that the user can use to explore the topic.

The James Web Space Telescope is giving us spectacular images of the universe. This animation inspired an animation I saw of the JWST. With this animation, the differences between the two major types of telescopes are illustrated. The question “which are the most economical to produce?” is also answered. After this lecture, participants will be able to work with various fill techniques to create the illusion of light paths. Path animations and “screening” techniques are used.

Learning English is a major activity on the internet. As a non-English speaker, I found the kind of grammar exercises, displayed in this animation useful when learning the language. Of course, it was presented by a real-life person (and I am not 100% there yet!), but the multimedia research report discussed in Section 2, mentions that language teaching using Multimedia principles is important.

When Mayer researched the Multimedia theory of Learning he made use of lesson material detailing the formation of lightning. Initially, his findings were that students learn better about lightning formation from a series of static pictures and text than from graphic animations. Clark and Mayer (2016, p. 84) suggest “… to use static illustrations unless there is a compelling instructional rationale for animation. In particular, when you have an explanative illustration, we recommend presenting a series of static frames to depict the various states of the system rather than a lock-step animation.”

Later researchers found in favour of animations, especially if the learner was expected to make inferences and conclusions about the state of the system in between the static frames. Such inferences, the researchers found, placed too much cognitive load on learners, especially non-expert learners.

The animated process flow that I promised.

I've added a PowerPoint presentation in this Lecture that I used to create a video for YouTube with. There may be some animations that you could use in your own creations.

This MP4 file was created with a PowerPoint. The intention of it was to create a branching scenario with H5P. You'll notice that the characters ask the same question about three times. That is to give three choices for the H5P player to branch to.  If you have any questions please pass me a note.

I've also placed the actual PowerPoint in this lecture for you to experiment with. Note that I have included Sound files for each slide. The sound files were created with Clipchamp Free Text to speech facility as discussed in Lecture 19 and the sound effects were modified with Audacity. See lecture 19.

Unlock the full potential of PowerPoint with ClassPoint, a tool that transforms your presentations into interactive experiences. In this additional lesson, we delve into the practical application of ClassPoint by exploring its role in facilitating a strategy planning session.

To get started with ClassPoint, simply visit ClassPoint.io. You can download and install the free version of the software on your computer, opening doors to a range of useful interactivities. Keep in mind that the free version has limitations on class size and number.

Navigating ClassPoint is a breeze, thanks to its well-documented features and helpful tutorial videos available whenever you need assistance. In this lesson, I'll guide you through a real-world example, demonstrating how I effectively utilized ClassPoint in a strategy planning session. Let's elevate your presentations and engagement with ClassPoint's interactive capabilities!