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Educational animations are animations produced for the specific purpose of fostering learning.

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.

Animation Target and Design

Visualization techniques, which are based off of well-planned animation design, allow users to effectively and appropriately understand a specific concept and convert it into a comprehensible mental image .  Animation design follow aspects of top-down and bottom-up design, taking into account the components of effective display, and user variation in the ability to comprehend certain information.  Educational animations identify how users learn best provided with a visual simulation, and parallel it to the degree of complexity in designing the animations .

Animation design should focus on parameters such as :

• Text versus graphics
• Level of complexity
• Distinction between control (reference) and different animations
• Static versus Dynamic Visualizations
• One or multiple views
• Behaviour versus performance
• Interactivity

Visually, the animation requires components to ensure accurate external representation (actualities of the world, rather than the mind) such as :

• Function – the processes and/or activity for purpose
• Configuration – a combination and arrangement of elements
• Behaviour – the way in which a phenomenon works and functions
• Kinematics – the mechanical properties associated with an object’s movements
• Dynamics – the mechanical properties associated with the varying forces applied to an object’s movements.

This allows for internal mental representation and processing, resulting in understanding and integration of knowledge (applying interpretations from the mind to the world) by users and their specific target concept.

Animations for Education

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.

Research evidence about the educational effectiveness of animations is mixed. Various investigations have compared the educational effectiveness of static and animated displays across a number of content domains. While there have been some findings that show positive effects of animations on learning, other studies have found no effects or even negative effects. This can be contributed to early and poor research and study design. Thus, in order to assure that there are benefits from animations in educational systems, cognitive design principles need to be considered. This includes interactive control, directed attention to emphasis on significant information, and a mandatory explicit explanatory component . In general, it can be concluded that animations are not intrinsically more effective than static graphics. Rather, the particular characteristics of individual animations and how they are used play a key role in the effects that they have on learning.

Regarding biological education, visual detail is an important parameter to consider along with the others previously mentioned above to effectively enhance a student's understanding and learning experience, using visual animations.  However, the level of interactivity is also highly considered in animation design, provided with the advancing capabilities of technology in present day education systems .  For example, an aspect of cell biology courses revolves around the topic of protein substrate-receptor binding in a dynamic environment.  Static illustrations are effective, provided that they depict the multiple steps in the process of changing configuration.  However, efficiency and efficacy can be further increased for student learning via the use of programs such as MDL Chime and Kinemage to create interactive three-dimensional simulations of the process .  This allows individuals to perceive the process of protein and substrate binding and specificity from different angles, and how the cellular environment plays a significant role .  Additionally, students are able to control, with a mouse, how they want view the desired structure, to improve their understanding .

Furthermore, other biological concepts can be depicted as animations in motion, rather than static illustrations.  This allows for a clearer representation of the steps in a given process, rather than having a cluster of static illustrations all at once that can be overwhelming for the student .  For example, using animations to show how the resting membrane potential is established, allows students to observe sequential steps of the process that results in the production of a negative resting potential.  Allowing the components of each step (i.e potassium ion movement across the membrane changes the chemical and electrical potential), respectively, to be animated one at a time, in an interdependent fashion, results in in a more organized and effective way to teach and illustrate a complicated concept.

Implementation in Biological Education

Biology, as a science, contains an extensive amount of detail and information.  There is the side of discovered information that is empirically evident to the science world; on the other hand, there is the side of undiscovered information that is currently targets for research.  Students are expected to learn and grasp existing ideologies of biological principles and at the same time, be able to adjust their perceptions to changes in these concepts, if need be .  Thus, biological education takes into consideration the changing, dynamic and advancing world of science and the information arising from it, and implements various methodologies to help and assist students in learning and understanding biological principles.  Thus, the goal with educational animation in assisting students in biology is to increase the levels of confidence and competence in students' learning .

Specifically, biology branches into many disciplines, such as cellular biology, cardiac physiology, genetics, and so forth.  There are extensive biological and cellular processes that require a considerable amount of cognition to process, understand and memorize the information for long-term purposes.

For example, educational animations are included in the following biological topics to assist in the students' understanding, such as :

• Cellular biology – Myosin pulling Actin microfilaments in a retrograde manner, for muscle contraction.
• Cardiac physiology – The cardiac cycle with regards to blood flowing from the heart to the rest of the body, and back to the heart.

• Genetics – gene regulation of gene expression  

Therefore, with the implementation of visual animations present in today’s education system, students who study biology have an addition to their repertoire of effective learnings strategies .  They are able to have a visual aid in depicting and simplifying the overwhelming amount of text-heavy resources they have in school . Students who are visual learners can highly benefit from animated illustrations as it depicts learned concepts in visual, rather than text-based, chronological steps of the target process.  In addition, kinetic learners also benefit from visual animations, as they are able to interact with the designed animation .    Thus, the clarity of the presented information in class or additional supplementary material, is a key aspect in allowing students to be able to clearly understand what they are learning .  In hand, the clarity in the details and design of the visual animation is notably important in implementing visual animations as an effective aid to student learning .

Educational Effectiveness

Animations may lack educational effectiveness if target learners can't process the presented information adequately. For example, it seems that when the subject matter is complex, learners may be overwhelmed by animated presentations. This is related to the role of visual perception and cognition in human information processing. Our human perceptual and cognitive systems have limited capacities for processing information. If these limits are exceeded, learning may be compromised. For example, the pace at which the animation presents its information may exceed the speed at which the learner can process it effectively. Therefore, despite the accuracy of information presented, poorly-designed animations that oversimplify a concept may hinder students’ further understanding, and may result in confusion . The accompanying animation (part of a pumping system) is problematic for this reason. But the solution is obvious: slow the animation down and accompany it with a written explanation. It is unlikely that superior learning is achieved by thoughtlessly substituting animation for a static graphic but by having it accompany textual explication. Another suggestion for addressing such problems is to provide user control for the learner over how the animation plays. User controllable animations allow learners to vary aspects such as the playing speed and direction, labels and audio commentary to suit themselves.

Future Implications in Biological Education

From the vast amount of data and research on visualization systems and techniques, there have been many contradicting results that identify the effectiveness and benefits of animations in educational systems.  This results from the poor planning of animation design, lack of consideration in inter-user variances in learning, and lack of methods of evaluation of the actual animation itself .  Improving animation design and its parameters seems to be the main focus to allocating effectiveness to users, however, it is the users that need to be focused on as well, when considering implementation of animation in biological education systems .

References

• • Faraday, P. F., & Sutcliffe, A. G. (1996). An empirical study of attending and comprehending multimedia presentations. Paper presented at the ACM International Conference on Multimedia 96, Boston, USA.
  • Faraday, P. F., & Sutcliffe, A. G. (1997). Designing effective multimedia presentations. Paper presented at the CHI 97, Atlanta, USA.
  • Hegarty, M., & Sims, V.K. (1994). Individual differences in mental animation during mechanical reasoning. Memory & Cognition, 22, 411-430.
  • Lowe, R.K. (2003). Animation and learning: Selective processing of information in dynamic graphics. Learning and Instruction. 13, 247-262.
  • Lowe, R.K. (2004). Interrogation of a dynamic visualization during learning. Learning and Instruction, 14, 257-274.
  • Mayer, R.E., & Moreno, R. (2002). Animation as an aid to multimedia learning. Educational Psychology Review, 14, 87-99.
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  • Tversky, B., Morrison, J. B., & Bétrancourt M. (2002). Animation: Can it facilitate? International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 57, 247-262.