How often do you find yourself in this situation; you google a simple ‘how-to’ question and ALL you can find is a 20-minute Ben Stein narrated video or an unnecessarily elaborate internet novel that still doesn’t answer your question? So, you spend more time skimming until you finally find that golden article with beautifully simple, easy to follow steps.

The world today is in a non-stop pattern of trying to do as much as possible in the smallest amount of time. This mentality has also evolved the way people gather and retain information. Google has even taken note of this trend and created the Direct Answer snippets at the top of your search results page so you get your answer even faster. So, what about when it comes to those never-ending, snooze fest companywide trainings? 

Cue Microlearning videos!

If you’re unfamiliar with Microlearning, it might just be the term itself that doesn’t ring a bell. Because if you have been on any technology platform in the past year (which since you’re reading this internet blog, I would assume so), you have been bombarded with different types of Microlearning videos - everything from 20-second recipe videos, to the 24 hours in news in under 15 seconds, to TED Talks. Microlearning’s use has increased immensely in many organizations for both formal and informal learning. 

Which brings us to our topic today. How in the world am I supposed to know which Microlearning authoring tool to use?!

Well friends, I’m glad you asked. Let’s take it back, way back to October 26, 2017 (also known as two weeks ago!) where GAAP Dynamics’ dynamic duo, our Director of Development and our Director of eLearning, presented about Microlearning at the DevLearn Conference and Expo in Las Vegas. While the 200+ member audience was on the edge of their seats, the directors asked them what their favorite programs to create Microlearnings were. Once all the responses were entered, the results were very diversified with a few true heroes shining through.

Among these heroes, there were two main training medium themes. On one hand, we have the Animated Video Authoring tools which includes GoAnimate, Camtasia, and VideoScribe. On the other, we have the ELearning Authoring Tools, Storyline and Captivate. Today we’re going to focus on the Animated Video Authoring tools so, if you’d like to see the ELearning Authoring tools, Storyline vs. Captivate duke it out, jump on over to this previous blog post to see who was declared the victor.

So, that brings us back to the Animated Video Authoring tools: GoAnimate, Camtasia, and VideoScribe. Videos have become so popular with training because some people are better visual learners. Each of these programs are great tools that hold the audience’s attention by combining appealing visual information with audio, but which one is the best? Glad you asked!

GoAnimate

First up, we have the program GoAnimate. This is an animation focused video editor used to make quick and professional videos.

Pros:

• User friendly- all that is required are simple clicks and drags and anyone can make professional animated videos.
• A very large asset library, backgrounds, and templates.
• Ability to import images, music, voice, screen captures, or video clips. There are also a lot of audio and video effects and enhancements to choose from.
• Offers multiple Video styles to choose from (Business, Whiteboard, or Infographic)
• It offers different ways to export - 1080p Full HD, 720p and 360p.

Cons:

• Impractical timeline.
• Extra charge for transferring commercial rights to a client or third-party.
• You need to duplicate scenes to avoid an overload which makes the files larger and therefore, makes exporting slower.
• You need to be connected to the internet to use.

Price:

Go Publish – $39/month or $299/year. Lower resolution watermarked videos, only one user, and small asset library to choose from.

Go Premium- $79/month or $599/year. Medium resolution non-watermarked videos, only one user, and larger asset library to choose from.

Go Team $159/month or $999/year. Highest resolution non-watermarked videos, multiple users, largest asset library with option to import fonts and share your videos and library.

Example:

Camtasia

Camtasia provides the powerful feature of video editing with the additional feature of screen recording.

Pros:

• Camtasia allows options such as Hotspots and quizzing to incorporate interactivity.
• User friendly and has very few limitations on what you can record.
• It’s compatible. Camtasia videos can be saved in a variety of different formats depending on their intended use.
• Camtasia’s editing timeline makes it painless to delete mistakes or insert in new footage, so you have control over each frame in your video.
• Easy to import and export elements, photos, and videos on Camtasia studio in different file formats to create a seamless, attention grabbing video.

Cons:

• Slight learning curve with incorporating all the different formats and assets into one fluid video.
• Does not have a large asset library to drag and drop animation elements into each scene.
• If you are screen recording, the voice-over audio must be timed perfectly with the on- screen recorded navigation.
• There are no free upgrades; user must pay an additional $99 to upgrade the software program.

Price:

Mac/Windows single user license $199

Software Upgrade $99.50

Example:

VideoScribe

VideoScribe is a simple and easily accessible software that creates videos using whiteboard animation.

Pros:

• Very user-friendly and they provide you with helpful free tutorials when you sign up and open your first video file.
• Easily add all elements onto the canvas. Using the Timeline function, you indicate when the each element is drawn, moved, or morphed and how much time the drawing should take.
• VideoScribe is easily accessible and can be used on Mac and PC. It automatically saves your video and you can also download it to work offline, so if your computer crashes, don’t panic!
• Out of the previous video editing software we have covered, VideoScribe is the most affordable.
• If you can’t find the specific element you want to incorporate in the library, you can create and import your own svg illustration into the VideoScribe library. Unsure how to do that? You’re in luck, we can help!

Cons:

• Exporting the finished product takes longer than most and sometimes it exports without the videos audio.
• When each element is hand drawn onto the screen, the hand usually appears very jumpy across the canvas and doesn’t have a smooth transition throughout the video.
• The illustrations in the asset library aren’t very polished and have the same style as a children’s coloring book. But hey, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
• VideoScribe’s creative canvas only has one option to create the whiteboard style videos.

Price:

$29/month

$144/year (equals to $12/month)

$665 onetime fee

Example:

As you can see, all programs have their clear advantages to develop professional video-based microlearnings. With the help of the GAAP Dynamics Dynamic Duo, we also learned about even more exciting programs that we can use to develop video microlearnings. So who knows what we’ll compare next! Which program is your favorite go-to Microlearning authoring tool to get people engaged?

We hope this blog helps you navigate the ever-evolving Microlearning world. As always, feel free to contact us if you have any questions.

Disclaimer  

This post is published to spread the love of GAAP and provided for informational purposes only. Although we are CPAs and have made every effort to ensure the factual accuracy of the post as of the date it was published, we are not responsible for your ultimate compliance with accounting or auditing standards and you agree not to hold us responsible for such. In addition, we take no responsibility for updating old posts, but may do so from time to time.