One of the hottest new tools for eLearning development is GoAnimate. Whether you want to create an animated whiteboard video (moving hand draws objects on your screen right before your eyes!), or a more character-based video (animated characters walk, move, talk, and emote), GoAnimate makes it possible. Even for those of us with limited or no drawing skill or knowledge of how to create animation.I’ve been working more and more on ways to integrate GoAnimate with more traditional eLearning lessons and content. For example, I wanted to add a human, interpersonal touch to an Excel lesson. So I created a GoAnimate video in which one colleague helps another with his Excel spreadsheet.
Now, it’s one thing to simply embed a video into an Adobe Captivate slide as a stand-alone, and then go on with a standard Captivate lesson in the next segment. But I wanted a tighter relationship between the video and the Excel software simulation lesson. So at one point in the GoAnimate video, the animated character is sitting at his desk, with his computer screen showing.
Check out the computer in the image above... that’s not just a fake image on that screen. That is actually a screenshot of an Excel software simulation created in Adobe Captivate.
What happens next is magic. In GoAnimate, I used the Camera Effects to zoom in on the screen, until the spreadsheet simulation was full size. And at that moment, the GoAnimate video ends. And Captivate takes over. Suddenly, the mouse starts moving, the voiceover from the GoAnimate is still talking us through the lesson (I’ll explain the trickery with the voiceover in a later article), and we are into a software simulation demo on Excel.
Now that we are in Captivate, the lesson goes on with a training or practice Excel lesson, followed by a graded assessment. Between those segments, additional GoAnimate videos come in and explain what to do every step of the way.
By integrating GoAnimate videos with your eLearning projects, you can add humor, engagement, and a fun touch that learners love. But what may be more important, you can publish your projects as fully SCORM-compliant training that can be uploaded to your LMS, with all of the record-keeping and reporting that you may need.
Have you integrated GoAnimate videos into your training offerings? We’d love to hear from you. And if you are interested in more on using GoAnimate in eLearning, sign up for Jennie’s live, online GoAnimate course.
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Jennie Ruby, CTT, COTP, is a veteran eLearning developer, trainer, and author. Jennie has an M.A. from George Washington University and is a Certified Technical Trainer and Certified Online Training Professional. She teaches both classroom and online courses, and has authored courseware, published training books, and developed content for countless eLearning projects. She is also a publishing professional with more than 30 years of experience in writing, editing, print publishing, and eLearning.
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