Admittedly bizarre but tons of fun, this week’s eSeminar focused on saving money and still getting high quality images and animations for your eLearning modules by leveraging free animation software to create animations and even stage complex simulations. In a test of my rapidly aging laptop I held the session in Adobe Connect, did Captures with Adobe Captivate Full Motion Recording of Linden Labs Second Life and ran a browser for good measure. 
Included below is the slide deck for the presentation, also available here via the link with the embedded text. As i mentioned during the session, the notes regarding the efficacy of personalization via avatar inclusion are on the downloadable slide deck here.
One of the more interesting considerations in this regard is what impact the avatar animation will have on learning. Studies related to this topic show that while the animation adds to the interest the learner may have in the content – the animation alone is not sufficient to lead to improved learning. So we have a couple of natural topics that emerge.
Perception: people will prefer the content with animation and slick graphics – if it is efficient and on topic.Learning: people will learn more when the animation is on topic. The theory behind this has to do with how we engage as conversationalists more than any other element..
So should you do animation? When should you do animation. I recommend that you consider animation when you are working on creating engaging interactions that facilitate knowledge transfer by creating recognizable mimetic (story / scene) elements for the learner. If you are training workplace safety for an aquarium, having images of events happen in an aquarium will trigger better long term retention for the staff engaged in the training. Same is true for virtually any contextual information. Since most of the critical training we do is context-sensitive – the call for such images are frequent.
One limitation of stock photography and similar resources is that you often cannot find images that perfectly suit the context of the learning – and its conceivable that these limitations can decrease knowledge transfer. The eSeminar this week focused on using free animation / world creation software to build such context rapidly and at very low costs compared to other animation solutions. You’ll find the link to the seminar below.
LINK: Here is the LINK to the on demand version of the eSeminar.
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