Abstract
Technology shapes how many of us design and deliver meaningful student learning experiences (Courts & Tucker, 2012; Khan, 2009; Lee & Tseng, 2008; Phillips & Sheehan, 2013). Research has supported the idea that multiple approaches in the classroom, including those that are technology based, can enhance critical thinking (e.g., Behar-Horenstein & Niu, 2011). The rapid pace of innovation, however, challenges us to continually experiment and reflect on the potential implications of technology use. Recent developments in animated text-to-video software present an opportunity to alter how students engage with course material, share ideas, solve problems, and demonstrate competencies. In 2011, Xtranormal.com emerged as a popular tool to create brief video clips using simple drag-and-drop techniques and to share via social media. With the recent departure of Xtranormal from this niche market (Stratton & Julien, 2013), GoAnimate.com has become the leading software for individuals, organizations, and educational users to develop and disseminate animated video. For management educators who value active learning, we believe that GoAnimate is a unique technology to complement existing pedagogical methods. It is our intent to detail the features and functionalities of GoAnimate, with special attention given to how it can be used by instructors and students alike. In addition, given advances in text-to-video software and recent literature on the topic (Phillips & Sheehan 2013; Stratton & Julien, 2013), we will offer a constructive analysis of the advantages and foremost limitations of GoAnimate web software in contrast to its now defunct competitor Xtranormal.
Resource Description
GoAnimate provides a web platform for users around the world to create, store, and share customized animated videos. Numerous organizations from a variety of sectors use the GoAnimate text-to-video to produce content for the purposes of product and service advertising, client and employee recruiting, and employee onboarding and training efforts (Goanimate.com). Although GoAnimate offers individual and commercial subscriptions, it has also successfully ventured into the education market to provide affordable access to teachers and students. Before examining the practicality and potential use of this software for management educators, we will first describe three central aspects to the user experience: functionality, dissemination features, and subscription options.
Functionality
GoAnimate’s design is appealing and accessible, especially for users familiar with navigating a typical web interface with buttons and pull-down menus. After users have crafted their written monologue or dialogue, an intuitive workflow leads them down a path of choosing standard sets and character templates or customizing settings, characters, and even voice and background audio. To create a simple, quick video with stock scene assets, users walk through a step-by-step process to select themes, select characters, input text per character in a storyboard design, identify basic emotional expressions (e.g., sad, happy, crying) for each character response, and adjust the characters’ respective accents and language preferences.
More advanced users with time to devote to experimenting and designing a complex video experience will find the customization options plentiful. The GoAnimate Video Maker is similar to sophisticated video software such as iMovie™or Final Cut Pro™used by professional videographers to edit, add text and audio, and finalize for distribution. For instance, users can manipulate the background setting to upload user-provided images, incorporate props that align with the story line, and include background audio to create dramatic emphasis within the specific scene. Users may also include multiple characters involved in the scene interaction and can personalize each character, including clothing, detailed and dynamic facial features, hair, race, gender, and even body shape. The character voice options are equally advanced. Users may choose existing computer-generated voices, dialects, and language preferences or record their own voices to upload for the animated characters to lip-sync. Last, multiple scenes may be developed for a single video. This presents the users with complex story lines and multiple character interactions in a single video with scenes of varying lengths and transitions between each discrete scene.
Dissemination Features
GoAnimate is more than simply animated video software. Rather, the company has created a social network of users who can share, watch, and comment on videos. Once users have crafted and saved their videos, which are password protected and stored in the GoAnimate cloud, they can easily access, edit, and preview via the dashboard. This feature displays all videos and offers customized settings to adjust privacy, change video titles, and even allow topical keywords for other users to search and watch particular videos. With features similar to other popular video hosting and sharing sites, GoAnimate provides integration with YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit, among others, to allow users to post videos seamlessly across social media. In addition, users can download their video files from the cloud onto their local devices in a compatible format to then watch, share, and display as desired. These features ensure that there will always be an audience for users’ animated videos.
Subscription Options
The availability of the aforementioned features for creating, customizing, and sharing animated videos is subject to user subscription plans. For the novice user, a free subscription is available with limited access to backgrounds, characters, and the like; these users may only edit and watch their videos on the GoAnimate site. There is an option to share the video link to other users and to the outside via e-mail and social media. The upgraded personal, commercial, and educational fee-based subscriptions offer access to advanced features such as full customization to scenes, characters, and backgrounds; an increased number of lines of dialogue; image uploading; and options to share videos inside and outside of the GoAnimate community.
GoAnimate for Schools, which is the subscription plan currently available to K-12 and higher education institutions across the globe, is an affordable alternative for instructors and students to manage individual user profiles. This plan allows instructors the flexibility to create and manage course-based working groups whereby enrolled students can draft, edit, and share their own content with classmates. As moderator of the subscription plan, the instructor can view student work at various stages of development, provide feedback individually or to all students, and tailor access and sharing controls depending on the specific assignment design and learning objectives. If an instructor is teaching multiple sections of the same course or different courses in a given term, or even if multiple instructors are team-teaching, the subscription plans offer flexibility to manage user enrollment across courses. The educator subscription fees are billed annually and are determined based on the number of enrolled users (students and instructors). It is more advantageous for instructors to consider this subscription option versus the more expensive individual plans given the costs per user.
Use in the Classroom
One of the challenges when seeking to engage students in experiential learning is to complement traditional exercises like role-play. Although role-play has been found to be effective, research demonstrates that students may become bored and disinterested if it is overused (Hunger, 2013). As noted in much of the extant literature (e.g., Gerard, 2011; McHaney, 2011; Myers & Sadaghiani, 2010; Worley, 2011), the millennial generation is generally comfortable and proficient with technology. Therefore, like Xtranormal, GoAnimate has the potential to capture our millennial students’ attention and empower them to participate actively in their education. GoAnimate transforms role-play as students shift from actors to the content developers, directors, and producers. We believe that courses such as human resource management, organizational behavior, labor relations, recruitment and selection, leadership, ethics and social responsibility, and international management would all be suitable.
A particular benefit of GoAnimate is the chance for students to delve deeply into course material and go beyond rote learning. The flexibility and adaptability afforded by GoAnimate let instructors develop a variety of both in-class and virtual video-based assignments. For example, if an instructor is teaching the topic of workplace motivation in an Organizational Behavior course, they could task different motivation theories to student groups (e.g., expectancy, equity, goal setting, etc.) with the expectation that each group would illustrate the assigned theory by developing and sharing a short animated video. A video highlighting the supervisor–employee dyad could illustrate both effective and ineffective meetings where the characters discuss performance and goals. Consider also a course devoted to international management where student groups could post videos illustrating various cultural faux pas and taboos, which could then prompt students to identify and discuss the taboos in the animated video cases. A video case might illustrate the degree of appropriateness of accepting bribes in various cultures. Alternative videos could be presented to the classroom to generate discussion, and students could identify the video that most effectively portrays how the actors should behave in this difficult situation.
In a more complex assignment modeled after choose-your-own-adventure novels, student teams could construct minicases and incorporate multicharacter scenes to contextualize their videos. They can show those in class or via online course management systems to prompt specific questions for the audience to consider and to solicit possible points of analysis and solutions. The audience could then build on what was presented and suggest alternative solutions or raise key questions. Prior to the dissemination phase of the project, instructors would ask the student teams to develop video cases with multiple alternative options (scenes) to address the case problems. Fellow students would be asked to select their preferred alternative. Teams would then show what might happen next in the story line based on the selected options. For instance, students in an Ethics and Social Responsibility course could illustrate the complexities associated with tensions often experienced between stakeholders’ short-term and long-term interests. A video could highlight management’s meeting with the board of directors, where emphasis is being placed on dwindling market share and a need for earnings growth next quarter. The scene could then shift to another video capturing a recent discovery that some of the organization’s waste disposal practices are mildly affecting the water quality in local communities. Teams could present alternative solutions via GoAnimate and ask the audience to discuss and debate which scenarios may be the optimal response to competing stakeholder interests.
Instructors may also wish to consider different options for bringing their material to life in the classroom. Like students, instructors could create their own videos demonstrating a particular theory, concept, or controversy to spark analysis and problem solving. For example, a video could be shown illustrating an allegation of harassment and the students could brainstorm how the human resource manager should investigate and respond to the allegation based on best practices, policy, and legal standards. Students could also be assigned the task of creating their own video responses to the allegation of harassment. These responses could be shown to the class and ensuing discussion could address whether or not characters’ actions are appropriate. Instructors could also use GoAnimate to assess whether students have understood the course material via a short video quiz (e.g., identify the motivation theories illustrated in the video). As we have illustrated, an array of possibilities are available to instructors and students.
Constructive Analysis and Comparison
For users familiar with the features and accessibility of Xtranormal, there are two substantive advantages of moving to GoAnimate as your text-to-video platform. First, the customization options and settings are vastly superior. As just one example, whereas Xtranormal permitted users to supply their own audio for character voice, GoAnimate has the same functionality, but it also lets users create videos that have narration audio without the need for characters. This may be helpful for scenes that require narration about a demonstration or explanation of a concept or a problem-solving solution.
A second advantage is the sophisticated privacy and sharing settings that enable creators of content and their GoAnimate audience to watch, share, track popularity, and comment on videos. This could be especially valuable to instructors who ask students to engage intragroup collaboration during the editing and prepublishing phase. GoAnimate has integrated the text-to-video web software with the communication options similar to contemporary social media.
Although GoAnimate is impressive for many reasons, it is important to note two specific limitations that should be considered before adopting this technology. First, the characters are not as realistic in facial expressions and present a more cartoonish visual experience for the audience. The details of the animated characters’ affective features and movements in Xtranormal were more believable. This may initially create some hesitance on the part of the students, who may perceive the videos as too elementary to convey, persuade, or inform audiences about complex content. However, sharing with students the profiles of commercial customers who have used GoAnimate to support numerous business objectives may increase GoAnimate’s credibility with skeptical students.
Last, the more advanced editing and customization features could be a double-edged sword if instructors do not first consider their own technological skills and comfort with experimentation let alone that of their students. Xtranormal offered users a very simple drag-and-drop interface, and although GoAnimate does offer a set of basic features, the advanced functionality could be intimidating. We recommend instructors and their students take time to experiment with the software when implementing an assignment that requires the development and dissemination of such videos.
Conclusion
GoAnimate is a versatile tool that could enrich student learning. We invite readers to explore the following resources to learn more about this innovative and useful software:
1. Are there tutorials to learn the basics and share with students?
http://goanimate.com/video-maker-tips/table-of-contents-goanimate-tutorials/
2. What are the specific features available to each subscriber plan?
• Personal: http://goanimate.com/personal/videoplans/?hook=header_button.site
• Commercial: http://goanimate.com/business/videoplans/?hook=header_button.site
• Educator: http://goanimate4schools.com/public_index
3. How and why have commercial users leveraged GoAnimate as a tool to support their respective business objectives?
http://goanimate.com/video-maker-tips/topic/case-studies/
4. How do educators use GoAnimate with their students?
http://goanimate4schools.com/teaching-with-video/
5. Is there available user support?