ULTIMATE GUIDELINE

TO CREATE AN AWESOME
EDUCATIONAL ANIMATION
FOR ONLINE COURSES
CONTENTS
3 Introduction

4 Why educational animations?

How to choose an animation style

8
for your course?

How to create an educational

13 animation?

• Brief
• Script
• Storyboard
• Voice-over
• Illustration & Animation

What to do if you don’t have any

30
skills in illustration or animation?

34 Conclusion

2
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to F.Learning Studio’s guide to creating awesome animations for
educational purposes.

Animations, if done right, could be the best teaching materials for

eLearning professionals. The success of KhanAcademy and Ted-ED is a
good indication of how animations inspire and engage learners of all ages,
backgrounds, and genders.

The problem is how to create an animated video?

Is it difficult, especially for those with no designing background?

Yes! It is hard to create anything with the Cartoon Network standard.

However, you don’t need unicorns or sparkles to engage online students.
The impact of visuals is definitely strong, but it cannot overpower the
importance of content. We don’t create the unnecessary “fun” distraction,
we create something that brings true values to students.

This ebook is for anyone who needs to create animations in the eLearning
industry, whether you are an online teacher who wants to create a simple
animation for your class, or an instructional designer who is collaborating
with a professional studio to create awesome content.

We will guide you through how to make a proper animated video for
online courses. In this ebook, you would find information on how to create
animations on your own, and what you will also need when working with
your production team.

3
WHY EDUCATIONAL
animations?
The use of animated videos on eLearning has always been
a controversial issue. Some research shows a significantly
positive impact of videos on learning outcomes, while
others note no enhancement when applying animation
to education. However, visual information is consumed
approximately 60,000 times faster than textual information.
Animation, if done right, could become an effective teaching
material for eLearning educators.

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The Motivational Power
of Visual Content
The two major motivation classifications identified by Educational Psychology are intrinsic and
extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation comes from within the students, this is like their interest or passion
for learning. For example, if a student is fascinated with painting, there is a high probability that
they will enjoy art classes. On the other hand, extrinsic motivation comes from external sources
such as recognition from lecturers or peers.

Animated videos for educational purposes would inspire students in different ways. They could
even be a captivating teaching resource that engages online learners with exciting sounds
and visuals. Moreover, animations have an amazing explaining ability that easily simplifies even
the most complicated ideas. This feature could enhance students' understanding, which
boosts their motivation by improving learning outcomes as well as accomplishment.

CONCENTRATION BOOSTER
The millennials have a much shorter attention span
nowadays. Research by Microsoft shows a shocking fact that
people generally lose their concentration after eight seconds,
which is much lower than a nine-second memory span of an
ill-focused goldfish. A well designed eLearning course should
be able to keep learners focused throughout the learning
process. An informative animation is not a distraction then.

An addition of animated video in the course could give

online learners an educational break. It releases the
students’ stress and motivates them to continue the lesson.
Furthermore, a series of short animated videos could be
more appealing than a long slide. The bite-sized animations
could help learners absorb the information quickly. It follows
the concept of micro-learning that is when a long course is
divided into much smaller modules.

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 AMAZING EXPLAINER
It would be better to let people see how things work rather
than taking forever to talk about what happened. According
to Forrester Research, one minute of video equals 1000
A
words. With that, you could say that animations have such
an amazing explaining ability, no matter how complex the
topics may be. While text forces the brain to create an image
from scratch, the video gives the ideas right away. Any types
of teaching content could be simplified and converted into
highly-visual and engaging animated videos. Animations
capture the abstract ideas much better than a normal live-
action clip. Nonetheless, Live-action shows just what in front
of the camera, but animated videos go way beyond that.

As a result, animations help students understand and focus

on the lessons better, which positively affects their learning
outcomes. When students attain a sense of achievement in
the course like praises from lecturers or good grades, they
are likely to be motivated to accomplish more.

FRESH & ENGAGING EXPERIENCES

Animations could break the common assumption of science
courses been painfully boring. Learning should be fun.
Animations have such an incredible storytelling ability that
converts any dull topics into the most interesting ones.
Words become visuals and charts turn to movements.
Students’ experiences are no longer limited to the pen
and paper method, as there is now an awesome option of
animated videos.

However, the most important thing is that animation brings

new experiences to learners. It gives them a getaway from
long and stressful documents, which may, in turn, inspire
their enthusiasm in the lesson. There are various ways
to motivate a student. We could give them praise, show
them full support or personalize the eLearning. However,
if a student takes great interest in the subject, they could
develop a desire to learn deeper without regard for high
grades or recognition.
6
animations are beyond
just being pretty.
Animations could break the common assumption of science courses
been painfully boring. Learning should be fun. Animations have such
an incredible storytelling ability that converts any dull topics into
the most interesting ones. Words become visuals and charts turn to
movements. Students’ experiences are no longer limited to the pen
and paper method, as there is now an awesome option of animated
videos.

However, the most important thing is that animation brings new

experiences to learners. It gives them a getaway from long and
stressful documents, which may, in turn, inspire their enthusiasm
in the lesson. There are various ways to motivate a student. We
could give them praise, show them full support or personalize the
eLearning. However, if a student takes great interest in the subject,
they could develop a desire to learn deeper without regard for high
grades or recognition.

7
How to choose an
animation style
for your course?
There are various types of animation for educators to choose
from. The most common types that are used for educational
purposes are:

2D Cartoon Animation
3D Animation
Motion graphics
Infographic animation
Typographic animation
Stop-motion animation

In fact, each type has its own advantages, and no particular

type is better than others. However, if you are lost in the
animation diversity, this guide may help you.
1 who are you
teaching?
Let’s start with your audience’s insights. You should design your course based on the behaviors
and needs of online learners. Who are they? Are they K-12 students? Are they corporate
employees? Each type of learner has their own tastes in animated videos. By understanding
their needs, you can create videos that not only attract their interest but also result in a positive
impression and great learning outcomes.

k-12 students

In terms of animations for children and adolescence, you must think of those on Cartoon
Network. The idea is obviously fascinating, considering how fun and beautiful it can be
done. However, it requires a lot of time and effort as well as a stable fund to create a
high-quality animation. It is unnecessary to create a high-quality animation when you can
produce motion graphics with the same quality but with less trouble. However, there are 2
lessons related to styles that you could learn from 2D Cartoon:

Vibrant color: Vibrant colors are more appealing

and inspirational to school children. They release a
happy vibe, making the lessons more fun and lively.
Humorous character design: They can feel
the fun at first glance without any silly actions. The
emotions or the body shapes alone attract their
interest immediately.

So, the key-note here is fun. Learning should be fun, and learning for children should
be way more fun. The fun concept lies in not only the content and the script but also
the style. The more lively and colorful you make it, the more young students feel curious
about the subject.

F.Team suggestion: Motion graphics with eye-catching visuals and sounds.

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Higher Education or
Corporate Employees

Courses for higher education

or corporate training have a
tendency to be more academic
and formal. It is essential to pick
and highlight just the key points
in the animated lessons. Despite
this step, the lessons should
still convey a large number of
knowledge in the form of charts
and figures. The right type of
videos for those courses should
be something fun that is able to
impress learners and enough to
guarantee the course quality.

More formal design: Contrary to the vibrant color of K-12 courses, higher education,
and corporate training, the instructional designers often choose a more neutral scheme.
Pastel and Pantone palettes are good examples. Those colors create a more formal and
serious vibe.
More text: Information can be conveyed by voice-over. Voice-over is highly
recommended for educators to enhance the human connection and reduce the self-
paced earning isolation of online learners. However, this doesn’t mean text shouldn’t be
included. In fact, texts make the lessons more easy-to-follow and help students identify
the important points.

F.Team suggestion: Motion graphics, infographic animation, and

typographic animation.

Both infographic and typographic animations optimize the movements and arrangements
of texts and icons to attract the audience. These 2 types of animation are best at presenting
complicated information like charts or numbers. Motion graphics also does this function
beautifully with the addition of storytelling ability.

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2 WHAT are you
teaching?
Subjects with facts, charts, and numbers

Animations play an essential role in enhancing a

student’s learning experiences. Subjects like science
require a significant number of facts, charts, and
numbers. Absorbing all information could be
overwhelming to learners, which leads to a loss in
their interest and motivation. Educators need teaching
materials like animations to explain the topics in a
new, fun, and informative way.

F.Team suggestion: Motion graphics, infographic animation, typographic

animation, and whiteboard animation.

All of the above types are the best at presenting complicated ideas with number elements.
However, whiteboard animation is an affordable choice. Whiteboard animated video shows
an artist drawing on a whiteboard to present a topic or an idea. It is so simple that anyone
could do their own whiteboard animation. Moreover, it has both the power of conveying
information and storytelling. Nonetheless, producing a proper whiteboard animated video
requires more designing skills, and you may need to seek a professional opinion.

fine arts and music

In terms of subjects like fine arts or music, you want
something with a more artistic vibe. All mentioned
above types could indeed present the ideas well. There
is no rule saying that you cannot teach music with
whiteboard animation. However, hand-drawn animation
is best at inspiring learners.

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 F.Team suggestion: Traditional hand-drawn animation.

Hand-drawn animators illustrate the movement with a series of images drawn frame-by-
frame. This type of video requires the producers to master both animating and designing
skills, which obviously requires lots of time and effort. However, it always results in a
stunning and inspirational animated video.

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
IT is a complicated field with high demand for brief
details. Therefore, the best way to teach IT would
be to screencast animation; thus, the learners
could observe and follow how things work exactly.
However, it is not just as simple as recording the
computer screen. There are various free tools to
get such work done. To produce a motivated and
inspirational video for IT students, you may need
to contact professionals. Animators could add
graphics to the animated videos, making them
more engaging and refined.

F.Team suggestion: Screencast animation.

There is no particular rule that identifies what you should use for different types of animation
in online learning. These suggestions only give you overall information on the advantages of
video styles and how to apply those benefits to your course. Moreover, you could combine
several styles at the same time, or even use live-action to have the best of each.

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How to create
an educational
animation?
1 brief
The brief is the first step of creating an educational animation,
be it a part of the internal or external production team. The brief
distinguishes the learning objectives, primary audience, animation
style, and video messages also. This step plays a vital in giving you
the overall direction of the animated videos, which affects the whole
course in the long run. It is necessary to invest proper time and effort
in gathering information. However, since it is a brief, it would be best
to stay under two pages.

learning objective
The first thing you need to include in the brief is learning objectives. The learning
objectives are the specific knowledge or skills you want learners to achieve after
completing the course. Designing an online course with consistent objectives will give you
an overall look at how to organize the materials to gain better outcomes. Therefore, they
could help you build a great educational video content that best reflects the goals.

Start by asking yourself:

What do you want to put in your course?
How are the learners expected to learn from it?
Why do they need to learn it?

To ensure that you are on the right track, it is essential to give the above questions clear
and achievable answers.

14
Be specific
The learning objectives are supposed to be specific. It would be confusing if you come up
with mainstream answers like you are building a course to help people understand things.
It is obvious that, for example, a watercolor course is supposed to teach learners how to
paint. This simple fact is unable to show how you can help with their artistic skill or why
they need to learn it anyway. Then it would be better to go into more details regarding
the particular tasks or actions learners perform. Going back to the watercolor course
example, you could describe the objectives in sub-categories like helping students learn
how to select the materials, decide on the color properties, or apply paints with different
techniques.

However, two pages of learning objectives are unnecessary. It is vital to keep them short
and straightforward so that your team would understand the full context. With this,
they would produce animations with appropriate content to keep learners focus on the
important elements.

Be measurable
The objectives in some aspects could function as the
KPIs of the course. If you write them with enough
precise measurable metrics, they will help you evaluate
the effectiveness of the instructional design. The most
important thing is that you could use this information for the
development of the course.

eLearning professionals could use various methods to measure the success of a course.
A quiz could test how students convey and apply their skills or knowledge. Feedbacks
and surveys are supposed to reflect learning satisfaction. Other data, like completion
rates, could also tell how engaged the online students are to the content.

Regarding animations, a quick way to test if they will work for you is to let students
watch the videos. Geoff Lawton – the founder of Permaculture Design Online Course,
gave online learners a sneak peek of his course by sharing a clip on Facebook. Vois la!
The 90-second animated video resulted in over 140.000 views and 3200 shares.

15
 PRIMARY AUDIENCE
Everything that makes up the video, including the content and styles, should strictly
follow the viewers’ tastes. You cannot expect a fresh graduate to understand a leadership
training video for senior employees, and a musician is less likely to enjoy an animation
explaining business models. The differences in tastes could come from dissimilarities in
individual backgrounds and lifestyles. One’s age, gender, occupation, or living environment
could significantly influence one’s video preference. If you identify the learners’ personas
with concise and accurate insights, we, as your professional team, would produce high-
quality animations with relatable content.

To start, these are the main questions you need to ask yourself:
Who is your primary audience? Is there a secondary audience?
What do they expect from the course?

The description of the learners should be more demographically detailed.

What is their average age?
What is their gender? Men, women, or mixed?
What is their educational background?
What are their culture, race, and nationality?

Age Race Gender

Educational background

16
These pieces of information could give your team an overall view of the audience’s taste.
It would be much better to go further and research on their psychological traits. Since
everyone is unique, personality is not something that could be answered with a few
questions. However, the general character of the learners could have a significant impact
on instructional design. For example, kids are more interested in courses that have silly
humorous videos with vibrant colors. On the other hand, the adult, especially corporate
employees, may prefer more formal, short, and explicit teaching materials.

In fact, we need much more data to produce a detailed audience analysis for an online
course; these details can be the technical ability of learners or their existing knowledge
and experience. It takes considerable time and effort for an instructional designer to
collect this information. A survey, an online community, or an interview could be an
effective tool to collect these insights.

However, it is of utmost importance to get your team to understand the demographics

and psychographic factors of the audience. Those points could help you decide on
the appropriate tone and style of the animation that best fit the viewers’ tastes.

VIDEO LENGTH

To decide on the appropriate length of the video, let’s start with the right content. Whether
you are building a full video-based online course or using animations as additional
materials, an excellent educational video should be short and sharp.

You should only adhere to one single point

in the video. If you keep the video concise
with highlighted key points, it would be easier
to track and follow the main ideas. If a video
contains too much information that doesn’t
stress the important elements, it could cause
confusion, which is what we call information
overload. The learning content could be broken
into smaller ideas. Instead of creating one
10-minute video with five concepts, create five
2-minute videos covering one concept each.

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AVERAGE ENGAGEMENT VS VIDEO LENGTH

70%

60%

50%
Average Engagement

40%

30%

20%

10%

0%
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 31 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
Video Length (minutes)

It would be best to maintain the engagement with a short under-2-minute video. We

could make it up to 4 minutes if you think your students need more information to
understand the full context’s ideas. However, there is a significant decrease in engagement
if a video is longer than 5 minutes.

The same concept is applied to the Permaculture Design Online Course of Geoff Lawton.
The course conveys a considerable amount of knowledge that is divided into thousands
of live-action and animated videos. How many animated videos did we produce for
Permaculture? We created 330 animations for the whole course. Each video is short,
sharp, and focuses only on a single point, making it much easier to manage and track.

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 ACCESSIBILITY
Instructional designers should make sure that every student, including those with
disabilities, has equal access to the learning materials. In eLearning, the tables of content,
headings, hyperlinks, and visual design should be optimized for better understanding and
clear navigation. With multimedia content like animated videos, it is important to provide
learners with a proper description, transcript, and caption.

Transcript and caption are the most common ways to get the video content accessible.
They are mostly useful for people with hearing loss. If people have difficulties in
understanding the video without sounds, then we use text to help them.

Captions are the text representing the spoken words within the video. It appears
appropriately at the same time the audio is available. Caption not only benefits the
deaf, but also anyone with audio problems like a broken speaker, or those who are
not fluent in the language the video is in.

Transcript is an easier way for video makers at the beginner level. Compare to the
previous tool, it matters much less. Caption requires a specific set of skills of using
the software fluently to match the text and the audio while with transcript, all you
need to do is write down the voice-over. Further information, like video descriptions,
explanations, or comments, could be added to help the audience understand the
lesson better. However, its largest problem is that viewers have to go back to the
video to access the visual content. It could become a less convenient experience
when caption allows them to read at the same time watching the animation.

Video description provides online learners with a short summary of the lessons,
making it much easier for them to follow the lessons. A good description should be
short and informative enough for students to note the key points, and it should be
engaging enough to motivate students to watch the whole video.

You can use one of these tools to help online learners reach the video content, or
combine all to maximize the accessibility.

19
2 Script
You don’t need a professional writer to create an
animation that works. Writing an educational video
script is much different from writing scripts for movies.
The script doesn’t need to be too formal unless you are
pitching it to a producer. The main point is to express
your ideas to your team members and yourself also.

Why should you do your own script?

The script is a good start to know how things work together. It may seem like an easy step
to skip, but you will be surprised by how much time and work you can save later in the
production process. Especially if you are collaborating with a studio to create awesome
animated resources, the script helps you avoid misunderstanding or error in the visual
content. Not everyone is e-learning professionals, though. Producers can consult you on
the types of animation that works for online courses or how to produce the best quality
with a limited budget, but that doesn’t mean that they are not better at instructional
design than you.

How to create an awesome animation script?

Where to start?
There are various stages of writing a simple script, and this seems overwhelming for most
people. To make it easier, let’s start with a brief. The brief identifies the learning objectives,
primary audience, animation style, and video messages also. This step is vital in giving you
the overall direction of the animated videos, which affects the whole course in the long run.
20
Proper time and effort should be invested to gather information. Everything in your
course, including the animations, needs a purpose. You must have clear learning
objectives, and video messages in mind or your animated videos would be nothing but a
fun distraction.

Write down
If you are a teacher or an instructor, then the work is easy. Let’s
make a draft voice-over for your animation. Imagine yourself
teaching a class as usual, then write down what you need
to say. Please remember to eliminate all the unnecessary or
distracting information to keep the videos on the point. This
is similar to the common self-recorded video courses in the
MOOC world. The instructors need to break down the lesson
into bite-sized videos, and it would become no longer than 5
minutes. The ideal length of the video ranges from 1 to
2 minutes. If you have experience producing live footage like
that, then bravos, the voice-over, becomes a piece of cake.

If you are not sure about the clip’s length, you could use this
basic word count tip:
45 seconds – 90-110 words
60 seconds – 120-170 words
90 seconds – 200-250 words
2 minutes – 250-300 words

Create a story

When you have the basic outline

ready, use your own imagination
and creativity to create a story.
You could break the script into
different scenes. Then set the
timeline, match the voice-over,
and add texts for each.

21
A story with characters

A script often contains three basic acts. Act One introduces viewers to the set-up and the
tone of the story. Act Two presents the problems the characters meet. Act Three is the
resolution. Writing an educational animation script is far different from the entertaining
ones. However, we could use this structure to make the videos more engaging and easy to
understand. If you have trouble with story ideas, then think about the examples you give
your students in every lesson. They are reality-based with a clear scenario, which would
make great suggestions for your story.

A story without characters

Lots of the time, we create videos explaining some processes or facts without any
characters. The key to engagement in these types of videos lies in the design. Just visualize
all the information in your mind first with images or icons. We are supposed to go into
more visual details in the storyboard; however, you can note down these ideas in your
script to make it easier later.

Make it fun

Make sure you add humor factors into the script. Learning should be fun! These small
additions to the courses could make big differences in the learning outcomes. We don’t
need to be silly to have fun. The fun elements lie in the character design (if you have any
characters, and you should have!), the dialogue, and the video tone.

For example, if you are creating an online

course about the marketing strategy for
beginners, instead of explaining with a
forever long theory, you could make it
into a dialogue! The scene could be a
conversation between a struggling shop
owner, and his friend, who happens to be
a marketing consultant. A simple story like
this could teach learners the marketing open
basics in an easy and engaging way. The
content is not new, but the revolution lies
in the way we approach and improve it.

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Format the script

You can format the script in whatever you think

makes sense. Many of our clients use a table to write
the script for the animation. This is an informal way
for scriptwriting, but it works and is also easy to read.

However, you could follow these basic rules to have a

decent script.

Font: Courier 12. This is mainly because one script

page in Courier 12 font is about 1 minute of film.
Heading and character name: CAPS
Music, scene direction or transition: italics

Or long story cut short. You can download a

template here.

23
3 Storyboard
A storyboard is essential for a good animation. We
can’t just redo a scene if something goes wrong. It
would take too much time and effort for any revision.
Minor amendments in video filter or sound effects
are less significant, but a change in the script or video
angle can cause more difficulties than expected. Then,
the best solution is to edit the video before it is even
produced. Next, we have the storyboard.

What is a storyboard?

If you are an instructional designer, then a storyboard must be a familiar term. The
storyboards for animations are pretty much similar to those produced while designing a
course. On it, you would have the project title, the text, the audio, and also the graphics.
Basically, it is the visualized version of your script that includes everything the learners
will see on the screen with extra information for your team members to work on.

A storyboard is of the utmost importance when producing animations for eLearning.

The main purpose is to get your team on the same page. Your colleagues or production
partners would have clearer visions of how the content is going to be developed. Then it
would be much easier for your team to review and restructure the video if needed.

How to create A STORYBOARD?

The first storyboard ever came from the Walt Disney studio. Animator, Webb Smith is
accredited with the concept of drawing various scenes on separate sheets of paper and
pinning them on a bulletin to illustrate a plot. This still works nowadays. You can do it
roughly with a pen and paper, or you may use various storyboarding tools to create a
proper digital one.
24
Get yourself a template
This is easy, you can google and get yourself a huge source of storyboard templates.
Or maybe you could check out our free template here. This simple template shows you
exactly what you need in a storyboard that works.

Projec t title:

Scene Scene Scene

Action: Action: Action:

VO: VO: VO:

FX: FX: FX:

Scene Scene Scene

Action: Action: Action:

VO: VO: VO:

FX: FX: FX:

Break down your script

Doing a storyboard is just like doing a comic strip. You have a story in your mind, now
you have to illustrate it in little rectangles. Storyboarding is pretty much the same. You
also need to break down the script and choose the most important scenes to fill in the
boxes. Divide your script into several parts, then note them down under different frames.
The same goes for your voice-over narration script. How many frames do you need? It all
depends on your story, but one minute of animation should contain 6-10 frames.

25
Start drawing
Do you need to be an artist to do the storyboard?
Should the storyboard go deep into details with background and color?
That would be good. However, stickman also works.

As mentioned above, the main purpose is to bring the team together to edit the animation
before it is even produced. You don’t need to be too detailed in the visual design. It is
important to let your team firstly understand how the story progress. Just print out a
template, pick up a pen, and start drawing. Before you know it, you are already doing what
professionals call a rough storyboard. This type of storyboard concentrates on indicating
the actions and flow of the videos. It doesn’t need to be clean. The stick figures with simple
arrow navigations work as long as they illustrate the story clearly.

Show it to your colleagues

Now it’s time to seek feedback from different
people and get new perspectives. They will
help you make sure that the animations
bring better engagement, and that it
also follow the learning objectives closely.
Animations are not just to entertain, they
must have clear purposes as everything else
in your course.

26
Upgrade

Pen and paper is the simplest way for storyboarding. It looks rough, but it works. However,
with animations that require a decent level of accuracy, especially those explaining a
complicated process like how a car engine works, it would be better to get an upgrade. A
storyboard describes the visual details much better than the previous one. However, it is
still a storyboard, you don’t need to make it look like screenshots from a short animation.
Professionals could do that anyway, but they require much less time to work.

It would be amazing if you have a good skill in design. If you don’t, leave the work to
an artist or use supporting tools like Storyboardthat (a tool that offers pre-defined
illustrations like characters with a basic storyline). For example, if you want to create an
animated video explaining how a drone works, then it would result in a conversation
describing the process. If you’re going to actually show learners how it flies, you need
professionals.

27
4 VOICE-OVER
It is not necessary to have a voice-over if you choose
to include more texts in the animated learning videos.
However, the voice-over is a wise choice. It is always
better to reduce the text and help learners absorb all the
information with visuals and sounds.

Should you hire a voice-actor?

The answer is definitely yes. Trained voice-actors could do the job professionally.

They have years of experience in delivering the best audio quality.

They know how best to interpret your script to the audience.
They have various styles of vocal performance.
They could even edit your audio!

Yes, they are experts. However, great value comes with a price. If you happen to be that
eLearning instructor who wants to save money, use your own voice.

When to use your voice-over?

In fact, to hire or not hire a voice-actor depends greatly on the instructional design. If you
create animations for a massive course with a clear storyline and characters, then it would
be best to seek professionals. However, if you only use animations as supporting materials
for the teaching resources, yes, ask the lecturer to do the record.

So what’re the visual-supporting animations? For example, you create an animated video
on the basic emotions of humans. The video is to describe the process of how they are
triggered without any plots. It is like giving the students an explanation with animations
instead of some slides or documents, a slightly amateur record would be fine. However, if
you plan to do something like Inside Out, hire a voice-actor.
28
Whose voice exactly?

Don’t just grab random people from your

company into the studio. This is not a job
anyone could do. The best suggestion
would be using the lecturers’ voice.
In fact, most video-based courses are
designed with the lecturers standing in
front of the camera, teaching a class,
or slides that showed with their audio
narration. Then you don’t want to break
the flow by including some strangers’
voices. It is natural to include the
instructors’ speech in animated videos.
With years of teaching, they could give
you an appropriate voice-over with a
conversational tone.

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5 iLLUSTRATION & ANIMATION
Congratulation! You have a brief, a script, a
storyboard, and a voice-over! What is left now is
illustration and animation. If you are collaborating
with an animation studio or freelancer, then all
the above materials are all that is needed for
them to deliver the job with immeasurable quality.
However, if you have experience in designing and
animating, then you can do it yourself.

ILLUSTRATion
Now it is time to move on to illustration. This step brings you further into the details.
Imagine filling the storyboard with more images representing every character, item in the
background, and movement. This is surely a lot of work. Whatever type of animation you
choose, you should have everything in digital forms to prepare for the animating step.
Illustrate them with tools or scan and edit all of the work you drew by hand.

Is this step hard? Not really. However, if you don’t have any background in designing or
illustrating, you should consider a professional illustrator to do the work properly.

animation
Now all that is left is the addition of movement to your work. Depending on your
expectation and type of animation, the movement should be smooth or slightly rough, like
stop-motion videos. Then all that is needed is to add a final touch with sounds and effects.

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What to do if you don’t have
any skills in illustration
and animation?
A short Cartoon Network standard animated video could
take months to produce. It involves plenty of work, including
scriptwriting, storyboarding, designing, illustrating, and
animating. All of them require different sets of skills that could
take years to master. Obviously, if you are looking for a way
to upgrade online courses with high-quality animated videos,
you should contact a professional studio to get the work done
nicely. Nevertheless, if you want to create it yourself, there are
various tools that help people, with no designing background
to produce their own animations
 moovly
Moovly is a cloud-based digital media content creation platform that enables users to create
engaging animated videos, presentations, and infographics. Moovly allows people to use a huge
library of pre-built, pre-animated, and editable groups of media objects with the users’ own
content to create stunning video projects.

It has a huge royalty-free media library

with over 500,000 videos, illustrations,
photos, sounds, and music.
Moovly Studio is an editor with a new
and improved user interface for a more
flexible and intuitive experience.
Moovly Bots video generator
automatically creates content based on
templates and user’s data.

Pricing: US$5/month or US$55/year

goanimate
GoAnimate is one of the best cloud-based animation tools in the market. It gives users easy drag-
and-drop experiences with a large number of templates, in-design, and animation. You could create
your own high-quality animated video in just 5 minutes with this tool.

Voice-over narration is automatic.

Users just have to provide the
words then the tools would sync the
character’s voice.
Various themes from all industries
and occupations are available, with
more being added all the time.
Full character customization
is offered with hundreds of color
shades and different styles.

Pricing: US$39/month or US$299/year for Publish plan.

US$79/month or US599/year for Premium plan.
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 powtoon
With a mission, “so everyone can animate,” PowToon is an intuitive animation software that enables
anyone, even those with no designing background, to create engaging animated videos.

It has a huge library with different

looks, including a modern edge,
whiteboard, infographic, Cartoon, and
corporate styles.
It has various templates of characters,
objects, backgrounds, and layouts.
Unlimited royalty-free music
Export to PDF and PowerPoint is
available

Pricing: US$5/month or US$55/year

VIDEOSCRIBE
VideoScribe is an amazing software that specializes in whiteboard animated videos. It enables
users to achieve a cleaner look than the traditional animations where narrators record themselves
drawing.

It has full customization of font,

images, canvas, hand drawing styles,
and music tracks.
It enables users to upload and use
their own content.
Easily export to PowerPoint.

Pricing: US$29/month

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These tools are user-friendly, and most require
no installation. You could easily create your own
animations for educational purposes with an
affordable annual fee. However, it seems that
these tools are best for general ideas or
presentations. The pre-designed illustrations
and animations could limit users in more specific
subjects. For example, if you are designing a
drone training course, you would find it hard
to create animated videos on how to use the
controller.
CONCLUSION
That’s how you make animated learning videos for your online courses!
It is not that difficult.

Ok, the illustration and animation part may be overwhelming for you.
You may use cloud-based animation software or choose to work with a
production partner instead. However, you can do the brief, the script, the
storyboard, and even the voice-over! Just remember to always start with
a brief. You need a proper brief to work with your team and ensure that
everything has a purpose. An animation is an effective tool as long as it
has clear learning objectives.

Bring true values to learners, not distraction.

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 CONTACT US

Well, if you are looking for that animation partner

who has vast experience in eLearning,

Book a consultation call

We offer you a free meeting up to 30-minute.

Visit our website: flearningstudio.com/

Portfolio: flearningstudio.com/work/
Read our blog: flearningstudio.com/blog/
Email: [email protected]
Whatsapp: +84 933 888 546