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7 Examples of Effective Educational and E-learning Videos

Jul, 22, 2022
Tim Aleksandronets
Tim Aleksandronets
CEO at Blue Carrot

Introduction

Effectiveness is the main metric that defines how well the e-learning video performs. For professional video agencies and those companies who have already been working with video courses for a while, the creation of effective educational videos is a perfectly realistic task. However, for startups and businesses that are only starting to dive into video production, it can be quite a challenge.

How do I ensure that my video performs effectively? What do effective e-learning videos look like? Can I produce an effective video if my budget is limited? 🤔

These are the questions we are going to address in this blog, as well as give you a selection of some effective educational and e-learning video examples that we’ve had the opportunity to work on during our 8+ year journey in the video production business.

Summary:

  1. What makes the e-learning video effective?
  2. What does an effective e-learning video look like?
  3. Great example of effective e-learning video — Primozone
  4. Best e-learning video for course or training program — Data Engineering Course
  5. 3D animated e-learning video example — Industrial project
  6. Series of effective videos for e-learning course — IRI
  7. Consider Blue Carrot Your Trusted Partner
  8. Final Thoughts

What makes the e-learning video effective?

Obviously, we can assess the effectiveness of the project only after the video goes live and after users view the course or complete tests — no doubts that this would be the most objective way. At the same time, we can still provide you with some basic recommendations that could help make the project outcomes predictable, and what’s more important, manageable.

✔️ Alignment with the learning goals

This is a must-have characteristic of any e-learning project which, in general, would sound like ‘meeting the needs of your target audience’. When creating an educational video — or series of videos — it’s necessary to align its type, style, narrative, etc. with the learning objectives set for the course, i.e. so that every aspect (technical and visual) of an e-learning video would work effectively towards delivering a specific knowledge or set of skills.

✔️ Alignment of the production with the available budget

When taking on a new project, we at Blue Carrot always try to make the most out of the resources we have at our disposal. That means the type and style of a video all get selected/developed to meet the budget goals.

In fact, an e-learning video doesn’t necessarily have to be expensive to perform effectively. If your project can’t afford to hire a professional studio, you can record lectures basically anywhere, including at home, to come up with a kind of ‘talking head’ video.

If you don’t know how to act on camera, can’t afford a professional actor, or don’t even have the basic equipment (such as a web camera) — no problem at all. There are a lot of video-based learning courses that come as pre-recorded PPT presentations enhanced with the lecturer’s voiceover. 

👉 This is to show that you have plenty of options for producing the best e-learning video even on a limited budget.

More information on different types of videos for e-learning courses can be found in our article here. 

✔️ Compliance with modern standards

When developing an educational video, it’s also necessary to take into account current learning trends and different formats of content consumption that are popular among the audience.

If considering video courses, producers should also pay attention to how they split large videos into smaller lessons. For example, one of the learning formats that has been gaining popularity recently is microlearning which suggests breaking the course into 5-7 relatively short video lessons (3-5 min. each).

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What does an effective e-learning video look like?

The first e-learning video that opens up our list is a great example of how you can blend pre-recorded footage with animation. This project was delivered by the Blue Carrot team for our partner — one of the top U.S. universities. 

We had to edit ready footage and also fill it with unique animation sequences that would visually support the course material making it easier to understand for a learner.

We came across two significant challenges with this project:

  • 1) A really tight timeline
  • 2) Project consistency

The first one was directly connected with the project size — more than 200 minutes of educational content had to be produced within just a month.

👉 For comparison: normally it takes about 3-5 months for a video agency to produce a project of this size. However, we always try to deliver to the client’s expectations, and this case was no exception. We significantly increased the number of professionals who were involved in this project which ensured it was completed on schedule.

Since the project was carried out by a large number of specialists, another challenge that emerged was the visual consistency. In view of that, we made sure that each team member paid maximum attention when producing visuals and did not miss out on even the smallest details that could jeopardize the entire style of a video.

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Great example of effective e-learning video Primozone

One of the biggest advantages of animation is that it can help you explain even the most complex subjects, and the video we created for Primozone just proves it. In just over two minutes the video explains the benefits of ozone use for disinfecting drinking water.

You can see that to educate viewers on how ozone is used for water treatment, we didn’t use any sophisticated animation sequences and the visual style is quite minimalistic. This was done on purpose to make sure that the visuals didn’t complicate the cumbersome chemical terms and concepts even more.

👉 The Primozone project is also a good e-learning animated video example that demonstrates how to combine the educational part with a particular product offering.

Best e-learning video for course or training program — Data Engineering Course

In this clip, the live footage e-learning video on data engineering was enhanced with animation. When it comes to production costs, such videos might be the most affordable ones.

Basically, what we have here is a lecture recorded in a home studio and enhanced with a simple ‘presentation-like’ animation. By making such a ‘mix’ or ‘hybrid’ it is possible to improve the visual look and level of viewers’ understanding of any video-based training course — without heavily investing in video production.

👉 To learn more about how to work with different levels of knowledge when creating e-learning courses check our guide:

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3D animated e-learning video example — Industrial project

Even though the 3D animation is normally considered one of the most resource-intensive types of animation to produce, in some cases it is the only way to successfully deliver your message or explain the concept to the audience. The same with this industrial project — within 60 seconds no other type of animation (or live-video, presentation, etc.) сould effectively handle the demonstration of the setup process of the laser guiding system.

👉 3D animation is widely used for industrial, manufacturing, and other tech-intense projects. If your budget for production of a long 3D animation is a bit thin, you can opt for low poly 3D sequences that — on one hand — are less expensive, and on the other — can perform as effectively as the standard 3D animated videos. 

Series of effective videos for e-learning course — IRI

The educational training video course developed by our team for the International Republican Institute is a perfect example of effective e-learning video that shows how to use animation in your project ‘on a budget.’ The whiteboard animation — used here — perfectly fits large projects where course producers can’t afford to invest in the production of complex hours-long 2D animation.

With the IRI project, our task was to create 60 minutes of video on democratic society development. The main challenge here was the short deadline, thus, to ensure we kept up with the timeline, we increased the team up to 20 people and delivered all the work in 4-5 months. 

In total, we produced 11 effective videos for e-learning, comprised of:

  • Whiteboard animation — 34 min.
  • Animation overlays — 24 min.
  • Live footage — 5 min. 
  • Illustrations — 26.

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Consider Blue Carrot Your Trusted Partner

When browsing through the references for your future project, it’s necessary to review e-learning course video examples of different formats. It will help you assess different approaches and pick the one that fits your needs best.

To help you do that, each of the educational and e-learning video examples above comes in its own unique style, format, size, etc. And thanks to our huge experience across different niches and industries, we were able to present you with such a wide variety of animation types and styles.

👉 But there’s more to it! As a bonus, let’s go through two more e-learning video examples of e-learning animated projects that could help broaden your knowledge more in terms of what you can develop for your best educational video course. 

🔹 ProdPad

A screencast video that our team compiled for ProdPad — a product management software that comes with vast functionalities for handling projects of different sizes. 

Screencasts are normally used for digital projects as they help to visualize intangible products (software) and showcase their features. So you see, this type of e-learning video doesn’t involve the production of complex animation, thus, it is a great fit where the production resources are extremely limited. Here we basically have the screen capture — with subtle e-learning animation accents — and a voiceover that accompanies the visual presentation.

🔹 LerNetz

Our partners from LerNetz (an e-learning agency based in Switzerland) approached us with a request to create a series of animated videos for their client — an insurance company. The client’s goal was to get an educational video course that would help them educate their sales managers on new and more advanced sales strategies, and eventually, boost sales of their insurance products. 

Our team was responsible for the production of all the visuals, so after LerNetz handed us the concept of e-learning project and script scenario we started working on the instructional course. The production process was quite intense as we had to deal not only with a very tight timeframe, but also with strict corporate guidelines regarding the content and other extra requirements that were set before the project.

As a result, our team produced a 35-minute long animation video (split into 6 smaller online video lectures) in full HD that was fully aligned with the corporate guidelines and client expectations. Multiple teams were engaged in the project production, which allowed us to deliver the project in two months — i.e. within the timeframe that was initially requested by the client.

Final Thoughts

To sum up, it is possible to get impressive and effective e-learning videos, regardless of how big or small the budget. When produced right — by an experienced production team — even the basic ‘talking head’ video can start looking like it was made by professionals.

Basically, this is a brief selection of projects that have been carried out by our team. If you need more information or are looking for a specific type of video production service contact us.

With years of experience in video production, our team has mastered the art of developing video projects for the e-learning industry. We know all the ins and outs of the production process, and can tackle any challenge that comes our way 🚀

 

So, don’t hesitate to get in touch 😉

FAQ

What does the e-learning video production process involve?

Here you basically look at six main stages for animated videos: learning design and scripting, the establishment of visual stylistics, storyboarding, development of visual assets, voiceover recording, and animation production. Each of these stages, in turn, may itself consist of a few intrinsic production processes. This is quite an extensive topic by itself, so if you don’t want to get lost in large volumes of information, check out our article where we detail the educational video production process step-by-step.

How much input do you need from a client?

Before we start working on the project we ask the client to fill out a brief document that will help us better assess the project needs and, based on that, develop a working plan. Aside from that, at each stage of video production, we conduct 1-2 rounds of revisions with the client to ensure that everything stays 100% aligned with their vision. To sum it up — we always try to engage clients in the production process as much as possible. By doing so, it is possible to get a great video for e-learning course examples which, by the way, you can check in our portfolio

Can you make my video go viral?

Can you make my video go viral?

We cannot guarantee that but we can increase the chances. Basically, there are three components that can make any project go viral: relevance of the e-learning video to the expectations of the target audience, production team expertise, and quality cooperation between the team and client during video creation.

The combination of all three factors can greatly add to video discoverability. In fact, we already have some examples of videos in our portfolio that went viral — check out the GIN project.

A video produced by the Blue Carrot team that got 10K views in just three days!

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