Whiteboard Animations in E-Learning

Animations are fun, intuitive and engaging. Animations in e-learning or e-learning animations have the power to capture the attention of learners and simplify the subject matter for better retention and recall. At workplace e-learning animations are the best way to bring any content to life be it hard skills or soft skills. There are various styles of e-learning animations like explainer videos, handplaced, whiteboard etc. I will discuss about the whiteboard animations in e-learning in this blog.

According to Wikipedia, “Whiteboard animation is a process where a creative story and a storyboard with pictures are drawn on a whiteboard by artists who record themselves during the process of their artwork”.

As most of you might be aware that this style is all about illustrations and is mostly done in black and white. You’ll see the hand of the illustrator’s drawing images after images on a clean white surface following a certain storyline to explain a concept/idea to you.

Why are whiteboard animations so popular?

Whiteboard animations are known as the most effective type of explainer video animations due to:

Minimalistic design that allows viewers to concentrate on the content
For creating video series as they are easy to develop and edit
Relatively lower cost of development

Why are whiteboard animations so popular for workplace e-learning?

Whiteboard animations have gained a lot of popularity in the world of e-learning, specially e-learning at workplace due to the following factors:

Capture learner’s attention

Whiteboard animations include drawing objects after objects and can be one of the best methods to capture the attention of the learners. As per a study by Microsoft the attention span of human beings is about 8 seconds and in a typical whiteboard animation there are about 7-8 objects being drawn on the whiteboard within a span of one minute thus successfully capturing the learner’s attention span.

Increase retention and recall

Whiteboard animations help to create an effective e-learning experience for the learners as they focus on an important object explaining a particular concept. For example a video on localization of e-learning focuses on important terms like language, translation,native experts etc, which helps the learner retain and recall these terms at the right time.

Good for continuous learning

Whiteboard animations because of their minimalistic design are easy to develop and deploy, whenever the requirements is there for continuous learning like product training, compliance training etc. This style can be safely and conveniently used for developing a series of micro videos on certain topics.

Engage the learners

Most of the learning at workplace is “click next” style of e-learning or classroom training , where employees are not able to apply anything of what they have learned simply because they do not remember . In order for them to remember the content, they have to get interested in it. Whiteboard animations enable the learner to engage with the module by giving the learners the “Wow!” moment, thanks to which they feel that a complicated content like compliance or a technical training has just become comprehensible.

Where can whiteboard animations be used in e-learning?

This concept can be widely used in :

Sales & Marketing training
Customer education training
Product launch training
Safety training
Compliance training
Sharing new ideas/changes in process

Is it tough to create whiteboard animations?

When you watch a whiteboard animation video, many people have this myth that it takes a lot of time to create. In reality, they are much simpler to create and consume less time.

Which one to add? Background music or voice over?

While you are developing text-based animation, instead of using voice over you can use background music for creating a smooth learning experience.

Where should you use whiteboard animations in e-learning?

1.Embedding videos within the e-learning module

By using authoring tools you can create interactive whiteboard animation videos and perform actions based on adult learning principles. Most of the modern authoring tools like Adobe Captivate, Articulate Storyline have the facility to import and embed a video and allow publishing to HTML5, SCORM etc . Adding a whiteboard animation in between the e-learning module can break the monotony specially if the module duration is more than thirty minutes, help capture the learner’s attention to some important concepts and increase the overall engagement levels.

2.Standalone e-learning videos

Whiteboard animations can be used as standalone e-learning videos as a precursor to the course, conclusion to a course or as promotional video to promote a new learning course.

3.Refresher e-learning videos

Whiteboard animations can act as refresher where there is heavy content. It helps the learners to revise them as per their need and make the information easier to digestible.

4.Illustrations

With the help of whiteboard animations you can simplify the complex process and with the help of whiteboard animations, you can create “How to” videos to help the learners to visualize the entire process.

5.Demo presentation

Whiteboard animations can be used to create impactful demonstrations. When real pictures are difficult to get, illustrations or drawings can suitably represent the products to the learners through animation.

Which are the popular tools to create whiteboard animations?

Some of the popular tools used to create Whiteboard animations are :