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.
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.
Everyone familiar with computer graphic is aware of the great degree of elaboration and precision that is now available in desk top publishing and graphic imaging. Every office in America and Europe has it desktop publishing department that make use of the Macs versatility in producing clear, crisp and valuable graphics. But outside of the industrial West with it availability to hardware, soft ware and monthly magazines to keep users up to date on the daily advances in the technology computer graphics is just in the beginning forms. In areas of the world where it is more important to have medicines to prevent childhood diseases and the iceboxes to keep them scanners, laser printers in the office take on a lower priority. Computers are becoming more important and there is daily becoming a greater need for people to be able to use them. Computers in the world of third world development, once relegated to accounting, data systems and report writing are now beginning to find their way into the production of various forms of educational and publicity materials. The use of computer graphics to produce extension education materials is now beginning to prove itself. And because of the user friendly nature of the Mac and accompanying software is where the Mac is becoming more and more evident in remote parts of the world as a first choice with programs from ministerial level to small voluntary organizations with little to spend and limited person power to make use of the equipment.
Some of the most stunning examples of graphics that communicate come from outside of education. The popular media -- such as television, newspapers, and magazines -- have long abandoned any real restraint when it comes to using visuals. True, most visuals are used primarily to capture the viewer's or reader's attention for just a few precious seconds. Often, though, the visuals are intended to enhance a memory function by influencing people to remember one product over all others. Consider the many variations of the popular beer commercial that all end in a frustrated "I meant a Bud light!" Pictures go through our minds of all the wrong "lights" that the hapless people seem to uncover. Because they are novel and amusing, the pictures are easily remembered. We automatically associate the pictures with the product name because we have been subjected to countless rehearsals of the two. So, we are likely to remember this one company's product first if we are out shopping for beer. The success of this commercial is a prime example of using pictures as a powerful mnemonic device -- the images and the product name are forever associated or cemented together. You couldn't forget them if you tried. (It also demonstrates the power of applying some simple behavioral principles.)
Some of the best examples of using full-motion video to demonstrate procedural knowledge come from television toy commercials. Advertisers not only must capture the attention and interest of children (no small feat), but show them how to have fun with the toy, albeit in exaggerated and contrived ways. At their best, these commercials unravel the complex nature of a toy in as few as 15 seconds. Particularly good examples are all the varieties of commercials that tout toy robots that transform into cars, planes, and tanks. These commercials demonstrate a tremendous amount of information in a very short amount of time. Although this does not suggest that educators should become advertisers, there is still a great deal to learn from the techniques that successful advertisers use to visually communicate their ideas.
E-learning
E-learning comprises all forms of electronically supported learning and teaching. The information and communication systems, whether networked or not, serve as specific media to implement the learning process.[1] The term will still most likely be utilized to reference out-of-classroom and in-classroom educational experiences via technology, even as advances continue in regard to devices and curriculum.
E-learning is essentially the computer and network-enabled transfer of skills and knowledge. E-learning applications and processes include Web-based learning, computer-based learning, virtual classroom opportunities and digital collaboration. Content is delivered via the Internet, intranet/extranet, audio or video tape, satellite TV, and CD-ROM. It can be self-paced or instructor-led and includes media in the form of text, image, animation, streaming video and audio.
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