About Animations in the Creative Classroom

Educational animations can be an effective tool for both enhancing student understanding and demonstrating student learning. In this course, participants will learn how to integrate educational animations in the classroom. The course provides a series of readings, resources, links, and video tutorials that explain what educational animations are, why they are worth considering, and how to create and use them effectively. Animation tools that will be touched on in this course include: Adobe Express, Canva, Google Slides, PowerPoint, Adobe Animate, and Adobe Character Animator. This course requires access to two animation tools (Adobe Animate and Adobe Character Animator) that are not free for the general public. Many teachers who are currently teaching in Utah have access to a pre-paid Adobe account through their school district or charter school. It is highly recommended that current teachers contact their school district or charter school to find out if that is the case, and to find out how to access it. If you are not currently a public school teacher, you could pay for an Adobe Creative Cloud account or download free trials of Adobe Animate and Character Animator.

Credit: 1 USBE or 1 SUU Credit
Course Type: Online
Course Level: Beginner
Cost: Free to Utah Educators 

 Expected Learning Outcomes

At the conclusion of this course participants should be able to:

• Explain the potential benefits of using educational animations with students
• Locate and effectively use free pre-made animations in their educational materials
• Create their own customized simple animations that match their curriculum
• Create their own customized complex animations that match their curriculum
• Produce a thoughtful plan for integrating educational animations in the classroom

 Final Assessment

Participants will write  a formal one-page (or longer) detailed plan for how you will use animations in the classroom. Paticipants will consider how they will add animations to teaching materials, if they will ask students to create their own animations, and some of the benefits you expect to gain from these experiences.