Learning with GIFs

V tips for more than fun with east-learning

Learning with GIFs

The company is offering a new e-learning grade – does this however take the unfortunate effect of triggering the same feelings in your learners as their almanac reminder to have the plaque removed from their teeth? Information technology doesn't have to! We'll give you tips and tricks on how to make learning more fun by using GIFs.

Nuts on the topic of GIFs

The starting time GIF had already been developed equally early on as 1987, merely the idea of GIFs goes dorsum even farther. GIFs are, in fact, comparable to the good old flip book. The rapid flow of several individually drawn graphics creates a moving prototype for the human eye, basically an extremely short video without sound.

Flipbook

INFO

Not quite picture, not quite video: GIF stands for Graphic Interchange Format. GIFs are usually animated short clips without sound.

Even later more than thirty years, GIFs nonetheless enjoy dandy popularity, despite their somewhat dated appearance. The popular moving images are widely used, pixelated and limited colour spectrum notwithstanding, because they tin be integrated almost anywhere and are easy to create and share. What's more: Our digital communications, whether on Twitter, WhatsApp or Teams, would certainly be a lot less entertaining and descriptive without GIFs. Speechless? No problem! Joy, sadness, compassion, shame – no matter what feeling you want to convey, you can always find a GIF for it.

Practiced reasons for using GIFs in learning

Social media is non the but place for GIFs. They can also make learning more vivid and entertaining. We accept compiled the well-nigh important arguments for the use of GIFs in e-learning for you:

  • GIFs visually stand for ideas and information in a few seconds
  • A GIF is easier to follow than a series of all the same images
  • GIFs unremarkably run in a loop and are besides perceived out of the corner of the eye
  • GIFs therefore do justice to the attention span of Generation Goldfish (<eight seconds)
  • Creating GIFs is much easier than creating high-end video content
  • GIFs play automatically on most any system
  • GIFs trigger emotions. The stronger the emotion, the better the retentivity
  • GIFs are mobile-friendly and ideal for micro-learning

tips for more GIF Ingenuity

The utilise of GIFs in e-learning offers several advantages. Use these short, brilliant clips, for case, to make a step-by-step tutorial more entertaining, reinforce a key bulletin, provide feedback, or brand comparisons. Nosotros have summarised the most important tips for using GIFs in digital training courses for y'all beneath:

Tip 1: Offer your goldfish entertainment

Technological progress brings many opportunities and possibilities along with it, but at the aforementioned time, it is blamed for decreasing attention spans. You can counter that with GIFs. A good GIF attracts attention and triggers emotions, thus ensuring long-term retentiveness. Ho-hum, colourless GIFs reduce these furnishings.

goldfish

Tip ii: No data overload

A dominion of thumb should be: Only one theme per GIF. The individual curt clips should not be longer than ten seconds and should be intuitively comprehensible. After all, true GIF genius is about explaining even complex facts in a simple and entertaining way (see point one!).

overload

Tip 3: Don't get Robin Hood. Or: No stealing for a expert cause

Besides the popular genre of fauna GIFs (keyword cat content), ultra short motion-picture show scenes brand particularly popular GIFs. Earlier you utilise a GIF like this from the Internet for your online training courses, however, make sure that you are non violating any copyrights.

robin hood

Tip four: Not everyone is familiar with Harry Potter

Consider the cultural background and age of your target audition. For example, if you use a meme from a pic, inquire yourself: Is my target audience likely to know the film? If a GIF is not clear and understandable, its positive learning effect is significantly reduced.

harry potter

Tip 5: And the Oscar goes to... Hire a expert protagonist

Practice you have a recurring character in your other online grooming courses? And so provide your learners with a mutual thread and create GIFs with that character too, for example, to provide feedback on a digital query. Passed the test? -> Rejoicing & Applause. Didn't laissez passer the exam? -> Deplorable face.

oscar

During an in-firm imc BarCamp, Instructional Designer Stephan Urbanski and Senior Developer Frédéric Macchi presented a more detailed wait at the potential of GIFs in the context of learning. The following sketchnote summarises the results of the session and all the important facts about learning with GIFs:

Sketchnote Learning with GIFs

The trends of the education rebellion

Due east-Learning Punk is an commodity and talk series for all L&D Pros who want to dare something and believe that digital training has to exist colourful and loud.

Contact person

Since 2014 I have been role of the marketing & communication squad at imc. My heart beats for artistic campaigns, exciting content and digital innovations. My goal is to brand digital topics understandable and simple to the point. My passions likewise my job are good books and sports.

I am always happy to receive feedback on the series at [email protected].

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Vanessa Klein

Senior Effect and Communication Manager